Luchando chronicles the everyday struggles of four Cuban jineteros (hustlers) who set out to resolve their touching, and at-times humorous, dilemmas in Havana’s gay underground. The film combines verité footage and informal interviews to offer a first-ever look at same-sex prostitution in Cuba. Historically "luchando" has meant the fight for the Cuban revolution, but today in Cuba's gay enclaves the word describes the struggle of having sex for money.
After the fall of the Socialist Bloc in the early 1990s, Cuba suffered total economic collapse and witnessed the rise of same-sex prostitution. Luchando provides a window into this growing community of sex workers 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; La Gorda (The Fat Girl), an aspiring rapper; And Yuris, a cocky 19-year-old whose womanizing has resulted in four children that he must hustle to support. Taken together, the characters’ stories embody the dilemmas of post-soviet Cuba--a nation torn between the ideals of socialist equality and a rapidly widening gap between the rich and poor.
[Running Time: 55 min.]
