Carsey-Wolf Center at UC Santa Barbara 
CWC Global: Chronicles of the Absurd
- Thursday, October 2, 2025 / 7:00 PM - 9:15 PM (PDT)
- Pollock Theater
- Screening Format: 4K digital projection (77 minutes)
- With Miguel Coyula (filmmaker)
In 2011, Lynn Cruz was an up-and-coming actress in the Cuban film industry. After she was cast by independent filmmaker Miguel Coyula in his dystopian film Corazón Azul (which would take ten years to complete), she became the subject of a systematic campaign of social annihilation, trials, police raids, state security interrogations, and intimidations. Their 2024 film Chronicles of the Absurd (Crónicas del absurdo) recounts this story through secret audio recordings, visualized through stop motion animation, still photographs, and paintings by Cuban expressionist artist Antonia Eiriz. Through an elliptical narrative in nine chapters, Chronicles of the Absurd reveals the complexities and contradictions of a country that leaves little room for internal dissent.
Filmmaker Miguel Coyula joined moderator Cristina Venegas (Film and Media Studies, UCSB) for a post-screening discussion of Chronicles of the Absurd.
Biographies
Miguel Coyula (filmmaker)
Miguel Coyula is a Cuban filmmaker, writer, cinematographer, editor, and producer. In 2003, Coyula made his first feature, Red Cockroaches (2003), for less than $2000 over a two-year period. The film won over twenty awards in film festivals around the world. In 2009, Coyula was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for developing his second feature, Memories of Overdevelopment, a follow-up to the Cuban classic Memorias del subdesarrollo (1968). After its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, the film went to gather several awards and honors. His 2017 documentary feature Nadie (Nobody) won the Best Documentary award at the Global Film Festival in Santo Domingo. Corazón Azul (2021) was filmed underground over a decade. It premiered at the Moscow International Film Festival in 2021, and won the HFPA Award at the Guadalajara Film Festival. In addition to his film work, Coyula has published three novels: Mar Rojo, Mal Azul (2013), La Isla Vertical (2022), and Matar el Realismo (2024).
Moderator Cristina Venegas (Film and Media Studies, UCSB)
Cristina Venegas is Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies where she teaches courses related to history, criticism, and theory with an emphasis on Latin American film and media. She is the author of Digital Dilemmas: The State, the Individual and Digital Culture in Cuba (Rutgers, 2010), a Choice Book Award recipient and is co-editor of Digital Activism, Community Media, and Sustainable Communication in Latin America (Palgrave, 2020). Her current book project is titled Julio García Espinosa and the Imperfect Imagination and examines the global legacy of the eponymous Cuban filmmaker’s (1926-2016) theory, creative practice, and cultural work. She is co-editor of the Media Matters book series for Rutgers University Press.
This event is sponsored by the Carsey-Wolf Center.
CWC Global
Media are global by nature; they express culture just as much as they transcend borders. The CWC Global series is dedicated to showcasing media from around the world. This series features screenings and events that place UCSB in conversation with international media makers and global contexts across our deeply connected world.
CWC Docs
The Carsey-Wolf Center is committed to screening documentaries from across the world that engage with contemporary and historical issues, especially regarding social justice and environmental concerns. Documentaries allow filmmakers to address pressing issues and frame the critical debates of our time.