90 millas

this film is incredible! it made me feel concern for those on the raft as well as the agony of going without water! water is more important than food in this case. The outcome is sort of predictable: they will never reach Florida. Tragedy hits each person on the raft beginning with the storm which washes grandma out to sea, the shark that eats the husband, the drug dealers on an island who accidentally shoot grandpa, Maria who dehydrates through menstruation, then the deaths of the boy and the other man (alberto?). Incredibly, its the baby that survives presumably because it had more breast milk than the others! this film is so life like and makes you feel like an observer throughout their odyssey which ends in tragedy save for the baby.

I have seen a lot of movies about survival in the seas, but this one felt like a blow to my stomach. It is so poignant, so true to life you will not believe it. I am not familiar with the Cuban cinema but this one is a very well woven story from beginning to end, and highlights the sensibility of its director. The stars are not famous but they look like real Cubans trying to leave their island in quest for the elusive dream of Miami. The camera work is fantastic, with no great special effects, just the minimum needed for you to follow the saga of a family that leaves Cuba on top of a dilapidated raft, without knowing how they will handle what lies in store for them, which, undoubtedly will include shortage of food and water, rainstorms and sharks. Claudia Rojas, who plays María, does a superb acting. Her bizarre way to provide food for the needy on the raft is an incredible moment that captures all the drama contained in the movie. It's a small great movie that should not go unnoticed.

The title of this film is very eloquent, 90 miles (160 kilometers), too simply to say as if this distance is easy to overcome. On the road is one thing but on the sea there are several natural phenomena and impediments, such as heavy storms, high sea waves and hungry sharks.

During the last two decades thousands of Cubans have left the country in different ways, some legally getting US visas and others, particularly those unable to get the visas, by sea and navigating in quite primitive rafts. Most of them desperate choose rafting as the main way to arrive in Florida's coasts, but only a few is able really to arrive. The present film of Spanish production is just a good story of this tragedy. It tries to reflect how the rafters behave when they see possible Cuban or American guard boats around, or when they face other adversities. It also reflects the dreams of Cubans to arrive in America. This film will be of great educational value to be shown to the Cubans, Haitians, Dominicans, all those intending to leave their countries on a very unsuitable raft to arrive in Florida, or even Africans trying to arrive in Italian or Spanish coasts. They will see what to face once you are on the boat or on the raft and how miserable you become till you are alive.

The cast has the participation of outstanding and experienced Cuban actresses and actors, as Daisy Granados, Claudia Rojas, Enrique Molina, Alexis Valdes and his father, Leonel Valdes, among others. Nice to see also a former Spanish member of the clown trio (Gaby, Fofo and Miliki)Miliki (Emilio Aragón), who worked in Cuban TV early 50s, later this group went back to Spain. Laura del Frago is the baby in the film and she is Spanish. The film was not shot in Havana or Miami, but in Spanish coasts of Tenerife, Canary Islands, where the sea is not so friendly as you may expect.