Mariquitas

Set in a gay-friendly bed and breakfast in Old Havana, Mariquitas focuses on a group of Cuban jineteros (hustlers) and their older European clients as they satisfy the desires of their bodies, minds, and souls in a country with limited resources.

In the last 5 years, LGBT Cubans have experienced unprecedented freedom of expression due to the support of sexologist, psychologist, and politician Mariela Castro Espin. Still, the country’s history of marginalizing, persecuting and interning homosexuals makes faith in this new period of growth tentative at best. Mariquitas uses the struggles of a specific slice of contemporary Cuban life to illuminate a larger historical dynamic – the continued tradition of cultural and sexual imperialism between Cuba and its former colonizers.