When Dino Pogolotti left Giaveno, a small town in Piedmont, at the age of 20 at the end of the 19th century, he was an emigrant like many others seeking his fortune.
In 1895 he embarked from Genoa bound for New York where he worked as a porter, waiter, translator and teacher. Here he met Grace, one of his students, marrying her despite the prohibition of the girl's wealthy family.
In 1898 he moved with her to Cuba as secretary to the American consul.
A few years after his arrival on the island, Dino purchased some low-cost land on the outskirts of Havana, beginning his successful entrepreneurial career which culminated in the construction of the “Barrio Pogolotti” in 1911.
The story of the Pogolotti family's descendants spans a century, from one side of the ocean to the other, with his son Marcelo, a talented avant-garde painter in the 30s, and his granddaughter Graziella Pogolotti, still a leading intellectual in the Cuban world today.
It is this extraordinary lady who, in her panoramic apartment in Havana, typed the film's prologue: “Crossing is the planet's journey through the ages, it is a person's journey through life.
In every crossing there is a port, a place to anchor and sow.”
Illustrious testimonies will lead us to discover the neighborhood of 1000 houses built on the outskirts of Havana by his grandfather Dino, an Italian emigrant.
In the Barrio, you enter homes where Santeria rituals are practiced, you meet elderly domino players reminiscing about times gone by, famous artists like the musician Oscar Valdes who chose to continue living in a working-class neighborhood, and former football champions who now dedicate themselves to training young people in a run-down sports center.
“El Pogolotti,” as it is known in Havana, is a unique place: a vibrant neighborhood whose popular character embodies a strong sense of community and a solid cultural identity.
