Luchando (2009)

Subtitles for: Luchando (2009)

"Hustlers face Havana"

A documentary shot in vérité style chronicles the lives of four Cuban sex workers who set out to resolve their touching and at times humorous, predicaments in Havana's gay underground. The film provides an unflinching, first-ever look at a growing community of homoerotic sex workers trying to make a living in the Cuban mixed market economy. Luchando provides a window into this world through the lives of four of its most compelling characters: Diosa, an articulate travesti who was kicked out of her father’s home for cross-dressing; Manuel, a macho technician who grapples with his sexual identity as he engages in intimate relationships with men; Gorda, an aspiring rapper who describes her sexuality as modern; and Yuris, a cocky 19-year-old whose womanizing results in four children that he must support. The film explores the ambiguity of cultural categories such as 'homosexual' and 'hustler' that are continually renegotiated by the film’s subjects.