A girl’s long-distance romance with an older Norwegian man promises to pull her and her mother out of their austere life in Cuba, but her dreams are shaken when she realizes he isn’t as idyllic as he seems.
Year of production 2025 Length 12' CountryCuba/USA Shooting Format Digital 4K Aspect Ratio 16:9 Dialogue Spanish
Director's Statement Since I was a child, I grew up hearing stories about sixty-year-old Europeans who, essentially, bought exotic Cuban brides with the promise of a better life. These women were the Cinderellas of post-Soviet Cuba, seen as heroines not only for having escaped the island’s agonizing reality, but also for their potential to become providers for their families from abroad. Unfortunately, those stories aren’t just distant memories; they still reflect the painful everyday reality of thousands of Cuban women today. Norheimsund is precisely an invitation into that bittersweet world, a door opened to a place where the brutality of circumstance can render deeply human even that which, in another context, would be unforgivable. This story was born out of a desire to tell an intimate tale of mutual sacrifice between a mother and daughter, two women who carry the weight of each other’s expectations and broken dreams, trapped in a country where hope seems to have faded long ago.
