Movie: A Translator (Un Traductor) Cine Latino Film Festival

Set in the ‘Special Period’ when the Cuban economy plummeted after the demise of the Soveiet Union, a taciturn, aloof Professor of Russian Literature is sent to a Cuban hospital to translate for Russian patients and their parents who have travelled to Cuba in the wake of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. The closing credits point out that over 20,000 Russian children were part of this program that continued until 2011. A father himself, the translator becomes increasingly drawn towards the Russian children, to the detriment of his marriage and relationship with his own son. It is filmed in Cuba, so I enjoyed seeing places I’d visited. The language is really hard to understand, although if you look (or rather, listen) to the trailer, the dialogue is very muffled.