Cuban film: The Lightweight Prize (El Prmei Flaco)

Forty-five years after the original film El Premio Flaco (The Lightweight Prize) was released, Hector Quintero got awarded by the National Theatre Award 2004 for his remarkable career. The movie El Premio Flaco takes on a renewed life on screen through a film version directed by Juan Carlos Cremata who described this film as a sad comedy. The central character, Iluminada, who lives in a very poor neighbourhood and whose economic situation is precarious, suddenly sees her luck change when she finds a prize inside a Rina brand bar of soap and wins a new home.
With this story line, Cremata, and the author, aspire to make the audience laugh at what should, in reality, make us cry; it’s something very intrinsic to this story, very human, and also very Cuban. The film director has stated that, in Cuba, "we laugh a lot at unfortunate things and we can also die laughing. And this plot is also one of the few known comedies that does not exactly have a happy ending."