About this submission

En Sus Manos (In Their Hands) is a short, cinema-verité documentary that takes place at the circus in La Habana, Cuba. Three generations of women—seasoned traveling hula hooper, Daly; teenage-contortionist, Nelyet; and first-time performing aerial artists, Helen, Haden, Karen, and Keren—warm up behind the entrancing red-and-white curtains. Personal and societal pressures brought on by the rigor of the circus surmount: each must reckon with the physical pain, gender stereotypes, and dreams of being a female athlete in Cuba, challenging the limitations of what female bodies of all ages look like and are capable of.

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