Cuba has announced Pavel Giroud's El acompañante / The Companion as its official entry in the Foreign Language Film category for the 89th edition of the Academy Awards. Starring Latin Grammy winner Yotuel Romero and Armando Miguel Gómez, the film is set in 1988 Cuba as the government dispatched HIV patients to AIDS centers under military rule.
The Companion, which narrates the friendship between Horacio Romero, a Cuban boxing champion that fails a drug test and must serve as a “companion” (a euphemism for warden) of Daniel, a conflictive patient.
This is the 19th Cuban candidate to the Academy Awards since 1978, the Caribbean island earned an Oscar nomination in 1994 with Strawberry and Chocolate by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío. This is the second film by Giroud that becomes the Cuban Academy Awards contender after La edad de la peseta / The Silly Age was selected in 2007.
Watch the trailer:
