Cuba Libre – Velocipedi ai Tropici

This putative update of Bicycle Thieves is full of rambling but seductive incident. It focuses on the arrival in Havana of a plane load of Italians: a venal promo director seeking revolutionary posters and poverty as a backdrop to shoe commercials; a bossy 'capitalist' setting up a restaurant; a self-obsessed 50-year-old poet forever declaiming his verse from the rooftops; a student come to research Zavattini's Cuban period, who fails to notice a real-life version of the De Sica tale re-run before his eyes. Writer/director Riondino, who also stars, may not turn tourist clichés about Cuba on their heads, but he leads them a merry, salsa seasoned dance.