PIEL CANELA

A Cuban exile returns to her homeland in search of family and unravels a secret that has haunted her ever since she left twenty years before. 

 

Piel Canela begins in 1980 during the Mariel boat lift. Cuban exiles in the United States are permitted to return to Cuba for the first time in nearly twenty years. Some hire boats in Miami hoping to retrieve relatives from Cuba. Among them is Veronica, who arrives in Havana hoping to reconnect with a daughter she left behind as an infant.

 

Veronica searches a row of dilapidated apartment buildings with address in hand and finds Juliette, medical student by day and jinetera by night. As Veronica tells Juliette about her past in Cuba, a series of flashbacks begins:

 

In the late 1950's, Veronica enjoys a bourgeois lifestyle spending summers living with her aunt at her family’s tobacco plantation in Viñales. Veronica meets the Afro Cuban, Enrique, who works on the farm. The two teenagers enjoy free time frolicking in the idyllic setting. At the end of the summer, Veronica returns to Havana but can't forget Enrique. When Veronica isn't allowed to invite Enrique to her grand Quinceañera celebration, she makes other plans to celebrate her birthday.

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When Juliette realizes that she is the baby Veronica left behind, will she embrace this stranger as her new mother and leave behind the only home she’s known?