A terrace overlooking Havana at sunset. Five friends gather to celebrate the return of Amadeo after 16 years of exile. From dusk to dawn, they reminisce about their youth, the group they used to form, the faith they had in the future... but also their disillusionment.

Cantet is a visual poet. Cuba has stolen his heart but hasn't clouded his judgment, and through a group of friends - once artists and dreamers, now bloodied but unbowed by the travails of adult life - we see the flip side of Castro's Cuba and its version of communism which, like that of the former Yugoslavia, imposed the dream of revolution on an entire country and its inhabitants. A dream betrayed, year after year. The issue here is not oppression or physical repression, but the stifling of ideas, ideals and talent; the illusion of a better world crippled by ideology, the embargo on the intellect, and the obtuseness of a system, and all of this conveyed by the grammar of love, by life choices that are painful and cause pain, because there's no right or wrong in this life, just happiness, love, and the loyalty of a group of friends that may have lost, but they played fair. [Boris Sollazzo]

LAURENT CANTET (1961, Melle, Deux-Sevres, France) graduated from the French film school IDHEC and made his first film, a documentary called Un été à Beyrouth, in 1990. He was assistant director on Marcel Ophüls' film Veillées d'armes in 1994. He next made two shorts, Tous a la manif and Jeux de plage. After his feature directorial debut in 1997 with Les sanguinaires, which premiered at Venice, Cantet won widespread acclaim for his 1999 film Human Resources, honored at the César Awards, BAFICI, and the festivals os San Sebastian, Turin and Thessaloniki, among others. His film The Class won numerous awards, including the Palme d'Or at Cannes. In 2012 Cantet directed La Fuente, a segment of the omnibus film 7 Days in Havana. The same year, his film Foxfire premiered at Toronto and San Sebastian.