Naranjo

This documentary revisits and rediscovers the work of self-taught painter Orlando González Naranjo, born in Calabazar de Sagua, Las Villas, in 1937, about whom writer Reinaldo Arenas once said: “A painting by Naranjo is an invitation that entices.”

It is a story of exile, human fragility, and the enduring power of art as a homeland when all other anchors in life have been lost.

Orlando González Naranjo emigrated to the United States in 1984, convinced that artistic success would allow him to travel the world and, one day, return to his native country. His body of work—imbued with nostalgia, color, and pain—becomes a refuge where the faces of his lost country reappear: peasant women with large, unfathomable eyes, rural scenes, emblems of his native land, and deeply expressive figures that reflect displacement and endurance.

Though admired by many and featured in both solo and group exhibitions, he never fully broke into the commercial art circuit and has remained on the margins of visibility within the art market.

Following his acclaimed documentary Chirino, filmmaker Jorge A. Soliño adds a new piece to the puzzle of Cuban culture in diaspora.