Los Frikis Is an Honest Coming-Of-Age Story Sharing Cuba’s Forgotten History

It’s 1991 in Havana, Cuba. Paco, Gustavo’s older brother, is teaching him how to kill a cat. Their family, just like many others around the island, is starving. What are the choices you’d make to survive? This is the type of question we see posed in Los Frikis, a coming-of-age tale punctuated by hope, love, and community currently showing in theaters.   

Centering Paco, a rocker and all-around nonconformist, and his younger, more soft-spoken brother Gustavo, co-stars Héctor Medina and Eros de la Puente (respectively) command attention as their characters navigate the very real hardships during what is now known as Cuba’s “Special Period,” a time remembered by famine and economic hardship. Both food and fuel shortages impacted the Cuban people to a devastating degree, a reality that still plagues the country to this day. 

After being told he is unwelcome to join his family in their attempt to escape Cuba and reach Miami’s shores, Paco makes a choice that unfortunately was not an uncommon one, particularly among Cuba’s heavy metal scene — to self-inject with HIV in order to be sent to live in an isolated, government-run sanitarium rumored to have luxuries such as food and shelter. 

There was still little known about the virus and many, including Paco, assumed self-injecting would lead to symptoms equivalent to a common cold. Meanwhile, Gustavo begins the journey to Miami alongside his family, only to swim back to Cuba to lighten the load of the man-made raft and afford his family a better chance of survival. The audience watches as the brothers, in their own unique manner, find ways to make life even a fraction more liveable.

Several Frikis — a group of punk rockers, who like many others, were seen as outcasts and shown disproportionate violence from government police — defaulted to the harrowing decision of self-injecting in hopes of escaping further repression. Gustavo, alternatively, was able to find a doctor empathetic enough to forge documents that stated he was HIV-positive, allowing him to join his older brother at a sanitarium in a rural part of the island. “I think it was very important for this movie to make sure that people know how desperate you actually have to be in order to make that choice,” de la Puente said in a recent interview with Today. 

In a Fidel Castro-informed regime, the Cuban people are sadly no stranger to basic rights being outlawed or, at a minimum, infringed upon. Los Frikis highlights this truth. As Paco and Gustavo begin creating a new life, one theme shines through: community. The sanitarium where the brothers reside is filled with those who were rejected by society, many of them Frikis or members of Cuba's queer community. The film traces the narrative of the sanitarium patients as they unite and commit to creating a peaceful environment to live in. And while remaining in a government-run sanitarium where they are confined to a misunderstood virus, the characters finally taste their first bits of freedom within the boundaries of their created utopia.  

Whether they’re playing baseball, singing, dancing, sharing ice cream, or putting together a wedding for a couple who is facing the reality of the virus, the Cuban spirit permeates the storyline. Poignant exchanges between newfound friends reminds us of the power we yield when empathy, compassion, and a desire for change lead the way.  

It’s clear that parallels exist both on and off screen for the actors. De la Puente, similarly to the majority of the cast, had never left Cuba prior to shooting the film. Authenticity seeps through the screen as the actors authentically respond to new freedoms being introduced while shooting in the Dominican Republic. The almost completely Cuban cast was a non-negotiable made clear by co-writers and directors Michael Schwarts and Tyler Nilson, the duo behind The Peanut Butter Falcon. 

As directors, their role (as they stated at one of the film’s screenings) was an obvious one: to set the stage for the actors to do what they do best: storytelling. The same goes for Puerto Rican-Guatemalan co-star Adria Arjona as well as Cuban-American producer Phil Lord and his producing counterpart Christopher Miller. Arjona — who we can see take a purposeful backseat to her Cuban counterparts in her role as María, a kind, strong sanitarium nurse, and Gustavo’s love interest — compels you. I can appreciate Arjona’s decision as an executive producer to allow her character to illuminate the evolution of de la Puente’s character, Gustavo, as he develops and begins to trust his own voice as he says goodbye to any remanence of youth gone too soon. With each subtle phrase and exchange between María and Gustavo, you feel the gravity and tension of the situation brewing. 

But the intentionality didn’t end there. It’s evident that notable efforts were made to keep the integrity and history of the Cuban story intact. From the breathtaking vistas contrasting the deteriorating city-scapes of Havana, and the Cuban consultants brought on board, to the actors’ embodiment of their roles, there was never a time where I was taken out of the moment. As scenes danced from joy to love and to despair, not once did I think, “I’m sitting in a movie theater.” I remained on-edge, locked in, and overwhelmed by seeing the essence of my culture represented so powerfully on screen. 

If you’re left wondering why humor and lightness pierced their way through darker discussions throughout Los Frikis, it was, in my opinion, not only deliberate but necessary. As a Cuban-American, I’d be remiss not to underline how absolutely refreshing it was to watch a movie centering a Latine story that actually allowed for a full breadth of emotions to shine through. It’s unfortunately not a rare phenomenon for our stories to be depicted by Hollywood as completely and utterly one-dimensional, often focused on the romanticization of some sort of criminality, poverty, or extremism. Please do not be confused, this is not a story of sensationalization. Los Frikis is not meant to satiate some non-Latine appetite for trauma-porn. Nothing needed to be dramatized in order to capture the suffering of Cuba’s past (and present). 

There’s a reason this film has garnered almost a dozen film festival awards, including Best Narrative Feature and Best Performance. Hope is the heartbeat of Los Frikis.

The accent, mannerisms, and colloquialisms felt authentically Cuban. I guess that’s what happens when filmmakers are dedicated to making sure the majority of the cast is actually Cuban.

As a film centering the AIDS epidemic, it was imperative to feature queer characters. I really appreciated a specific scene that depicted a wedding that the patients at the sanitarium put together for a queer couple. While there definitely could’ve been a larger focus on the discrimination toward the queer community, particularly as a way to stress the remaining homophobia within Latin American culture, I think that within the constraints of the storyline that predominantly follows Gustavo, the filmmakers did a good job. 

The film truly didn’t lean too heavily into stereotypes and tropes. That said, I loved how the movie touched on topics like queerness that remain taboo in Latine culture. There was also something very refreshing about the main character, Gustavo, being a softer kind of masculine. To me, it was a nod, intentional or not, to machismo and how unbelievably backwards it is. Gustavo was a delicate and refreshing balance to the brothers’ step-father, Mateo, who we see in the beginning of the film.

The film did a good job at portraying the range of Cuban faces and colors. I was happy to see Afro-Cuban representation on screen.

I can’t even begin to express the wave of emotions that came over me during and after this film. As I mentioned, I really appreciate the filmmakers’ effort to not turn this story into a romanticization of trauma. Los Frikis is amazing, and I’m so grateful to the entire cast and crew for making it come to life. I’m particularly thrilled to see the progression of the fantastic actors, many of whom have now been able to get themselves and their families out of Cuba because of the film.