By Susana Besteiro Fornet on October 27, 2022
opening of La Gota de Aqua at the Chaplin Theater in Havana
How much desolation can be contained in a mother’s tears? All that is caused by the impotence of knowing her daughter is sick. How much hope is there in the smile of a child? Absolutely all of it.
The documentary La Gota de Agua ( A Drop of Water) tells the story of Natali, who is currently five years old and was diagnosed in 2019 with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare type of cancer that affects the bones. Starring alongside her in the 30-minute story are her parents, young Camagüeyans Dairelis and Pedro Armando.
Directed by directors Iriana Pupo and Yaimí Ravelo, and produced by Resumen Latinoamericano, the short film shows three main aspects: the importance of the unconditional support of the family in difficult times, the humanity of Cuban health personnel, and the many vicissitudes that patients go through, exacerbated by the criminal U.S. blockade against Cuba.
Natali is one of the many indirect victims of the blockade. Although treatment for her illness has been possible, access to basic resources such as medicines, a wheelchair or prostheses to replace the leg that had to be amputated when she was three years old, is almost an impossible mission.
Graciela Ramirez, Argentine journalist, and co-ordinator of Resumen Latinoamericano’s Havana bureau, said at the premiere of the documentary yesterday at the Chaplin cinema in Havana, that La gota de agua is one more piece in the denunciation that Cuba makes every year against the blockade before the UN, supported by the vast majority of the international community. “It is a little drop of love in a downpour of solidarity”.
Source: Granma, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – US
View the trailer of the movie here in Spanish: https://youtu.be/GLAz16yWa1k