Documentary 'Unfinished Spaces' at 34th Starz Denver Film Festival

When Fidel Castro took the revolutionary reins in 1961 Cuba, he had an inspired idea during a round of golf at an aristocratic club. Upon those lush greens, playing this idle game of the rich, Castro had a vision for transforming the course into the grounds for a National School of Arts. Like a whimsical whirlwind uplifted by the hurricane of revolution, his vision took shape as he put the project in the hands of Cuba's most talented architects.

Within a seamless weave of colorful talking heads, soft Cuban rhythms, a trove of archival footage and time-lapse cinematography, is Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murray's documentary "Unfinished Spaces." The documentary penetrates a relevant, yet soft-spoken microcosm of Cuba's past and future as a communist state in a globalized world. The National Art Schools were an architectural revolution in the collaborative visions of artists and architects, namely Ricardo Porro, Roberto Gottardi, and Vittorio Garatti.

There are beautiful moments in the retelling of how the bold, earthy structures were constructed to the rhythms of students volunteering to help carry bricks, as they would launch into impromptu drum circles. It was an artistic utopia where dancers, musicians, thespians, sculptors and painters would thrive within these walls inspired by a social utopia. Yet, just as the National Art Schools were born of revolutionary ideas, the promised ideals got crushed in the militaristic stratagems reforming Cuba.

While the surviving ruins of the schools were recently placed on the World Monuments Fund "Watch List," they have fallen victim again to the current state of hard economic times across the globe. All the same, "Unfinished Spaces" reveals a story that reaches deep into Cuba's modern history, unearthing the often untold artistic wayside of revolutions.

"Unfinished Spaces" screened Friday and Saturday at the 34th Starz Denver Film Festival and will screen again Sun., Nov. 6, 7:15 PM at Starz Film Center.Originally published on milehighcinema.com.