Gravitas Ventures has announced the U.S. theatrical release of the highly-anticipated documentary film Elián by Ross McDonnell and Tim Golden, and executive produced by Alex Gibney, on Friday, May 19, after its upcoming world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Narrated by Tony Award-nominee Raúl Esparza, the documentary is the first-person remarkable story of Elián González, the five-year-old Cuban boy plucked from the Florida Straits on Thanksgiving Day in 1999, and how the fight over his future sparked a flashpoint for simmering post-Cold War US and Cuban tensions.
Featuring powerful personal testimony, candid interviews, and extraordinary archival news footage, the feature presents a gripping account of Elián’s remarkable survival after his mother and others perished at sea, the custody battle between the boy’s Cuban father and Miami-based relatives and the momentous political fight surrounding it all.
With unprecedented access, Golden and McDonnell update this iconic story with the voice of the adult Elián González, now an articulate 23-year-old young man and perhaps, the hopeful new symbol of an emerging, post-Castro era, Cuba. Elián is slated for a platform theatrical release beginning in New York and Los Angeles on May 19, and CNN will premiere it later this year for television as a CNN Film.
