To the West, in Zapata (Al Oeste, en Zapata)

A peasant wanders the dark marshes and tangled wilderness of Cuba’s Ciénaga de Zapata, or Zapata Swamp, in search of food for his family, burdened by the inefficiency of the country’s regime and the COVID pandemic. He secretly hunts the meat of fierce crocodiles, though their capture is forbidden, as the camera follows his dangerous ordeal, one he undertakes with astonishing courage. Silence is broken only by birdsong and his movement across still waters where danger lurks. In the village, his wife and disabled son wait anxiously, unable to survive without his extraordinary sustenance. One of the most unexpected documentaries ever filmed in Cuba, set in the myth-inspiring Ciénaga de Zapata, a landscape of peril and uncertainty.