Yuli

A film set in Cuba. Carlos grows up in a poor district of Havana. He dances in the street, plays football and dislikes school. His father enrols him in a ballet school. The boy does not want to go; he runs, he hides, and his father finds him and takes him back every time. There is a reason for the man's insistence: his own family was brought over as slaves, and he wants his son to carry that like a debt. From there the film runs two lines together. One is the childhood and the training; the other is Carlos now, a dancer preparing a piece that stages his own life. There are sections abroad as well. He works in London and other countries, joins large companies, and struggles to find his place there too. What the narrative is interested in is not success but belonging: the man feels guilty for leaving his country and, when he returns, cannot quite belong there either. The dancing sits inside the narrative; rehearsals and pieces of the performance are used as sections that carry the story. It is adapted from a real life. Carlos Acosta is a Cuban ballet dancer who reached an important place in international companies; he wrote his memoirs. The dancer plays himself as an adult. Santiago Alfonso plays the father and Keyvin Martínez the young Carlos. The screenplay is by Paul Laverty. Icíar Bollaín directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes dance films and adaptations of real lives. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a straight narrative; the film keeps jumping in time and hurries over some periods.