CUBAN/SWISS FILM PREMIERE
NEW FILM BY FERNANDO PEREZ & LAURA CAZADOR
Cuban movie director Fernando Perez has co-directed the just released film “Insumisas” with Swiss director Laura Cazador. The fictional account of a woman who pretends to be a man, so she can practice medicine is based on actual events that occurred in Cuba.
The film tells the fictionalized account of a Swiss woman who arrives in the eastern Cuban city of Baracoa in the early years of the nineteenth century pretending to be a male doctor named Enrique Faber. The fictional doctor Faber eventually gets married in the city, which is Cuba’s oldest. The fictional Dr. Faber assumed a male identity so that she could attend medical school in Paris, which was male-only at the time. The female doctor that the film is based on emigrated to Cuba after serving as a doctor during the Napoleonic Wars, and her rise creates envy in Baracoa and eventually leads to the discovery of her true identity. Upon the discovery of her identity she is taken before a tribunal in Havana. This part of the film is based on the historical records, and the film is true to the record of the trial and its’ eventual verdict.
Produced by Rodolfo Barros with both Bohemian Films of Switzerland and the Cuban Institute of Art and Film Industry (ICAIC), the film includes performances by Sylvie Testud, Yeni Soria, Mario Guerra, Hector Noas, Giselle Gonzalez, and Corina Mestre.
By Clao York
May 3, 2018