Motherland or Death

They're devoted to their motherland with heart and soul, but they curse the circumstances in which they live. They're Cubans, and they have trouble making ends meet in their declining socialist state. Various families and individuals are followed in their daily struggle to survive: a mother preparing for her daughter's 15th birthday, who philosophizes that 15 really too young to start working as a prostitute. Two older women who barely manage not to go hungry with their food stamps and what they earn as street vendors. A cleaner and dance teacher who proudly shows off pictures of his foreign one-night-stands. A one-legged dancer, who sees himself as an example for everyone who feels limited and wants to achieve something just the same. A musician from the orchestra that plays at dances where older, Western ladies feel young and beautiful in the arms of young dancers. We hear the story of these average Cubans in voice-over while the camera captures life on the streets of Havana, where lovers embrace, a fight breaks out, rain drenches clothing hung on lines, and a lone jogger gets soaked by a wave that breaks over the boulevard. And of course there's music everywhere.