Unfinished Spaces

“Cuba will count as having the most beautiful academy of arts in the world.”
—Fidel Castro (30 June 1961)

Three architects resume their first project—Cuba’s National Art Schools—left unfinished in 1965 when their creative visions came head to head with the political realities of the Revolution.

In 1961, three young, visionary architects were commissioned by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara to create the world's most beautiful art school on the grounds of a former golf course in Havana, Cuba. Construction of their radical designs began immediately and the school's first classes soon followed. But as the dream of the Revolution quickly became a reality, construction was abruptly halted and the architects and their designs were deemed irrelevant in the prevailing political climate. Forty years later the schools are in use, but remain unfinished and decaying. Castro has invited the exiled architects back to finish their unrealized dream. Their story begs the question—how dangerous can architecture be?

Directed by Alysa Nahmias and Ben Murray
2010 / HD / Color / 16:9 (1.78:1) / 90 min / Stereo

Grants and Awards
Jerome Foundation
New York State Council on the Arts
Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts
AIANY Center for Architecture, Arnold W. Brunner Grant
LEF Foundation
The Alan & Linda Cohen Family Foundation
Elise Jaffe + Jeffrey Brown
Individual Donors
Fiscal Sponsorship: Women Make Movies

Filmmaker Bios

Alysa Nahmias, Co-Director + Producer
Alysa Nahmias is founder and executive director of Ajna Film. Unfinished Spaces is her feature directing debut about the history and architecture of the most outstanding architectural achievement of the Cuban Revolution, Cuba's "forgotten" National Art Schools. In the course of producing this film she has received numerous grants and awards from government agencies and private foundations, including the New York State Council on the Arts, the Jerome Foundation, and the Graham Foundation. Nahmias holds a Masters degree in architecture (M.Arch) from Princeton University and a B.A. from New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study. Nahmias is a member of the American Institute of Architects, the International Documentary Association, the Independent Feature Project, and Women Make Movies.

Ben Murray, Co-Director
Ben Murray previously directed and produced the short documentaries Birds and Teenage Hardcore Punkrock Millenium, and he directed a forthcoming music video for Bob Dylan's Mississippi. Murray is currently senior online editor and effects artist at Postworks, New York. His regular clients include major networks and numerous independent production companies. His recent work includes: No Direction Home, directed by Martin Scorsese; Sicko, directed by Michael Moore; Why We Fight, directed by Eugene Jarecki; Fog of War, directed by Errol Morris; My Architect, directed by Nathaniel Kahn; Born Into Brothels, directed by Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman; and Once In a Lifetime, directed by Paul Crowder. Murray holds a BFA in Film and Television Production from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.