East Of Havana

Rap fans may be disappointed that there's not more of their favorite form of music in Jauretsi Saizarbitoria and Emilia Menocal's handsome documentary about the burgeoning, largely underground Cuban hip-hop scene, but that's the point. While the film sets out to help change outsiders perceptions of Cuban life — as one artist profiled puts it, they're not just the mulatto girl, the old man with the cigar or the folk-music loving, rhumba dancing partiers — it reaffirms tragic image of Cuba as an economically devastated island where artistic freedom continues to be restricted by the state.

The title refers to the town of Alamar, an impoverished enclav...