2207041513959
Nila
07/04/2022
A dysfunctional family living on the verge of a socio-economic collapse in 1990’s Cuba, resolves to employ whatever tactic necessary to survive their day to day, all while finding a way to flee the country. NILA, a beautiful young Afro-Cuban woman and aspiring ballerina with the National Ballet of Havana is closer than ever to her goal of being the principal ballerina, after years dancing with the company. She is forced to expertly navigate the misogynistic world around her that consistently objectifies her instead of seeing her talent as a professional ballerina. Her boyfriend MICHEL, a cocky, attractive hustler that works the front desk at the Grand Hotel Nacional pimps Nila out to make ends meet for their small household. Nila’s mother, AMERICA is a retiree resigned to utilizing Nila’s beauty and buoyancy to survive in the harsh conditions of daily life in Cuba with constant shortages of everything. Nila’s quest to the top encounters a snag when a mysterious journalist - KARLO blackmails her while working one evening as an escort. Karlo’s blackmail intensifies this family’s moxie to get out of Cuba, any way possible, leading to Michel getting arrested and Nila becoming embroiled in a dangerous scheme to assassinate the Cuban dictator and his brother along with Spanish king and queen visiting the island to sign a historic trade agreement. The accord promises to help Cuba finally complete construction of its first nuclear power plant and liberate itself from oil dependency but an underground environmental group stages dramatic protests in an effort to stop them. Karlo uses his connections to have Nila work in a state sanctioned mansion full of elite escorts to pleasure and secretly blackmail the island's top investors. Karlo also secures Nila a job serving the royal family and top officials of Cuba’s government at the closing gala. At the planned moment, Nila poisons the dishes for the dignitaries but spikes their soup with the sleeping powder she uses to dose her clients instead. She tricks Karlo into believing the plot was successful. Fighting off a security guard to escape notice from the gala, she finally slips out in time, reuniting with Karlo at his hotel room to celebrate. She spikes his champagne with enough sleeping powder to knock out an elephant, and after a scuffle with him, snatches her exit visa, plane ticket, moneys promised and flies out of the country before he awakes. The next day, the hotel maid service and security discover an unconscious Karlo stuffed inside a closet, next to a bag of the poison Nila was supposed to use for the dignitaries. Karlo is arrested, implicated in the plot and discovered to be a mysterious, disgruntled son of Fidel Castro working with the environmental protest group to stop the nuclear power plant from being completed. In the final scene, an emboldened Nila dances a triumphant performance in her new home of San Francisco, feeling a freedom and power never felt before in her entire life.
This story highlights themes of female empowerment, sexploitation and life under authoritarian regimes.
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