Plot: 1964, Havana. Reynaldo Arenas has just gotten a job working at the National Library, although he really wants to be a writer, which he has showed great aptitude at since he was a child growing up in the countryside in Oriente province. He is just beginning to acknowledge his homosexual orientation. With the support of like-minded friends, Reinaldo begins to flourish both sexually and artistically, and he becomes a world renowned writer. But by the 1970s, he is feeling more and more repressed by the Cuban authorities, both for his work and his homosexuality, despite he having fought for the Castro led revolutionary forces when he was a teenager. Although he is able to smuggle manuscripts out of Cuba to get published, he himself has a more difficult time trying to get out. The police use any excuse to arrest, detain and or imprison him. In May 1980, he is finally able to leave to the US in a purge by Castro of anyone who doesn't support the regime. But in the US, Reinaldo is plagued by other demons.
Alternative Plot: A richly imagined journey into the life and writings of brilliant Cuban author and exile Reinaldo Arenas. It spans the whole of Arenas' life, from his rural childhood and his early embrace of the Revolution to the persecution he would later experience as a writer and homosexual in Castro's Cuba; from his departure from Cuba in the Mariel Harbor exodus of 1980 to his exile and death in the United States.
Rate this movie!