Balseros

Description

2004 Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary

Best Documentary – Academy Award Nominee
Amnesty Award Honorable Mention – CPH:DOX
Best Documentary – Goya Award Nominee
Best Work of a Non-Latin American Director on a Latin America Subject – Documentary – Havana Film Festival
Memoria Documentary Award – Havana Film Festival
Best Feature Documentary –  IDA Awards
Best Documentary – Turia Awards

“The documentary achieves a rare depth and intimacy in its portrait of dreams fulfilled and shattered.” -Hollywood Reporter
“An eloquent, nonjudgmental examination of the immigrant experience.” -Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Compelling.” -The Park Record
Poignant, spirited, revealing. -Christian Science Monitor

Synopsis

In the summer of 1994, a team of public television reporters filmed and interviewed seven Cubans a few days before their risky venture of setting out to sea in homemade rafts to reach the coast of the United States.  Six made it far enough to be picked up at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard.  When these balseros (rafters) were finally allowed to go to the United States, the film crew went with them to a string of several cities.  Seven years later, the film crew visits them again, to discover that their destiny has been in the United States.  Theirs is a true story about some of the authentic survivors of our times, the human adventure of people who are shipwrecked between two worlds.

DIRECTORS

Carles Bosch

Academy Award Nominee Carles Bosch is a reporter of the TV3 program “30 Minutos” since its founding in 1984. For Telenoticias (news broadcast), he has produced news reports on important international events, including the wars in the Gulf, Bosnia and Kosovo. At the same time, he has produced and directed exceptional documentaries about the conflicts.
He has directed current-events documentaries in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Philippines, Mozambique, Cuba, Mexico, Uruguay, U.S.A., Haiti, Nicaragua, and Israel, among others, as well as in different European countries. He has directed a five-chapter documentary series entitled, “Historias del Caribe” (Stories of the Caribbean). Along with his work in journalism, he was selected to spend a year as the first director of an office of humanitarian aid that the Barcelona City Council established in the city of Sarajevo after the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina ended.

Josep Domenech Graell

Academy Award Nominee Josep Domenech Graell began to work for TV3 in November of 1984, as an ENG reporter in the News Department. He has worked for Telenoticias (news broadcasts), “30 Minutos” and other non-daily news programs, with a preference for images. Since the end of 1990, he has been a member of the “30 Minutos” crew, which has shot over 60 illustrated reports. As director of photography, he made a five-chapter series entitled “Historias del Caribe” (“Stories of the Caribbean”).