Balseros

Originally conceived as a half-hour, Spanish public television program, this absorbing documentary follows seven "balseros" — men and women who, desperate to escape the economic shambles of post-USSR Cuba, set sail for the U.S. on makeshift rafts — through seven tumultuous years of their lives. Estimates suggest that some 50,000 Cubans attempted the 90-mile crossing in August, 1994, but 15 days after Castro opened the Cuban coasts the Clinton administration declared that enough was enough. Illegal refugees would not be admitted, and anyone caught in U.S. waters would be "rescued" and returned to the U.S. naval base in Cuba's Guantanamo Bay. Shortly after th...