- This is POV .
I'm Pete Schwaba,
host of Wisconsin Public Television's Director's Cut .
Tonight, Kim Hopkins takes us
to a small fishing village in Cuba,
the setting for her film, Voices of the Sea,
a family drama with the backdrop of a country also in flux.
In Voices of the Sea we meet Mariela,
a mother of four who yearns for a better life in America.
However, Mariela's husband, Orlando,
who is several years older than her,
is perfectly content to stay in his homeland
where he fishes the open seas
and hopes to pass on his craft to his sons.
Despite Mariela and Orlando's different feelings
about leaving their native land, they are deeply in love.
But their differences about leaving Cuba
cause such a rift
that she contemplates leaving her children
to pursue the American dream.
Mariela lost her first husband who drowned trying to flee Cuba
years earlier.
But the lure of opportunity in the United States
to this younger generation of Cubans can be overpowering.
To Orlando, the pain of family separation does not outweigh
the illusionary American dream.
Born to an American Father and a British Mother,
Director Kim Hopkins' previous works have been seen
on A&E , Discovery Channel , and National Geographic .
Hopkins' also has an intense love
of the sea and fishing herself,
so it comes as no surprise
that one of her biggest literary influences
is Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea .
See if you notice a parallel
between Hemingway's old man trying to hold onto a giant fish
and Hopkin's leading man trying to keep his family together.
Voices of the Sea starts now on Wisconsin Public Television,
your home for independent film.