Cuba Undercover
Cuba, 1994. The US embargo is at its harshest, and the island is struggling to survive. Filmmaker and photographer Sean Brandt travels into the heart of the country and has a chance meeting that changes everything.
He meets a Cuban-born engineer who emigrated to Australia and built a life there. Twenty-five years later he came home to see his dying parents, and was then refused permission to return to Australia. Together the two men drive the length of Cuba, staying with local families who share what little food they have.
Sean captures their lives in deeply moving black-and-white photographs and video, filmed entirely undercover. The result is an intimate portrait of resilience, generosity and loss, and of a people cut off from the world.
Originally titled An Embargoed People, the film was renamed Cuba Undercover after the American broadcaster ABC judged the original title too controversial. It went to air in prime time to an estimated 20 million viewers.