LAZARO AND THE SHARK: Cuba under the surface, is a stunning documentary that brings us behind-the-scenes of the infamous Conga Competitions in Carnival of Santiago de Cuba - the poorest Carnival in the world. Lázaro, the leader of the Conga de Los Hoyos, is determined to win the coveted award bestowed to the neighborhood that presents the most spectacular conga. Like leaders of rival congas, Lazaro must join with his neighbors and scour the strictly rationed marketplace to find the necessary materials to create a showstopping performance. Director William Sabourin O'Reilly, an Afrocuban native to Havana, offers a rare window into communist Cuba, a country that is often romanticized, and almost always portrayed through the eyes of an outsider.

Sabourin seamlessly weaves wrenching moments of senseless police violence with intimate scenes of distant lovers aching to reunite. As the competition approaches, we see much more than Lazaro’s desire to win a local honor. We are immersed in the question that lies in the center of the fight for the future of Cuba: to continue to live in the legacy of a revolution that has left its people in a constant struggle of poverty, or embrace a more dangerous, vital vision of living in freedom?