Tent City, dir. Miñuca Villaverde, USA 1981, 31 min.
Book tickets
Both from 1981, Tent City and Mayami Nuestro present contrasting and penetrating non-fiction portraits of Latin American diaspora communities in Miami.
Over several months in 1980, some 120,000 Cubans left their island for the United States in a mass exodus known as the Mariel boatlift. Fifteen years after having left Cuba herself, Miñuca Villaverde, alongside her husband Fernando visited the so-called “Tent City”, an improvised camp of these marielitos beneath the I-95 highway in Miami. Tent City explores that microcosm and reveals the day-to-day life of several refugees, “men and women, homosexuals and heterosexuals, whose lives were only separated by cloth curtains hanging between the beds like floating walls”. Empathetic but refusing victimhood, moving and reflexive, Tent City is one of the essential films about the Cuban diaspora, a portrait of people discarded by history in their incessant search for agency and liberty.
Carlos Oteyza’s Mayami Nuestro, meanwhile, takes a satirical yet affectionate look at Venezuela’s elite, capturing the exodus of petro-dollars from Venezuela to Miami in the 1980s. Contrasting Venezuela’s social inequalities with Miami’s sanitised consumerism, the film humorously registers both a frivolous neocolonial fantasy as well as a fleeting reversal of global capitalist hierarchies, when oil wealth gave the Venezuelan upper classes unprecedented power. With millions of Venezuelans in recent years traversing the Darién Gap in search of opportunity in the US, Mayami Nuestro resonates anew, highlighting the persistence of economic and cultural hierarchies in the Americas and beyond.
Programme
Tent City, dir. Miñuca Villaverde, USA 1981, 31 min.
Mayami Nuestro, dir. Carlos Oteyza, USA 1981, 33 min.
Total runtime: 64 min.
Presented by Jonathan Ali, José Luis Aparicio and Cinema Mentiré. With thanks to Cinesa, Francisco Llinas, Filmoteca de Catalunya and Fernando and Miñuca Villaverde.
Over several months in 1980, some 120,000 Cubans left their island for the United States in a mass exodus known as the Mariel boatlift. Fifteen years after having left Cuba herself, Miñuca Villaverde, alongside her husband Fernando visited the so-called “Tent City”, an improvised camp of these marielitos beneath the I-95 highway in Miami. Tent City explores that microcosm and reveals the day-to-day life of several refugees, “men and women, homosexuals and heterosexuals, whose lives were only separated by cloth curtains hanging between the beds like floating walls”. Empathetic but refusing victimhood, moving and reflexive, Tent City is one of the essential films about the Cuban diaspora, a portrait of people discarded by history in their incessant search for agency and liberty.
Carlos Oteyza’s Mayami Nuestro, meanwhile, takes a satirical yet affectionate look at Venezuela’s elite, capturing the exodus of petro-dollars from Venezuela to Miami in the 1980s. Contrasting Venezuela’s social inequalities with Miami’s sanitised consumerism, the film humorously registers both a frivolous neocolonial fantasy as well as a fleeting reversal of global capitalist hierarchies, when oil wealth gave the Venezuelan upper classes unprecedented power. With millions of Venezuelans in recent years traversing the Darién Gap in search of opportunity in the US, Mayami Nuestro resonates anew, highlighting the persistence of economic and cultural hierarchies in the Americas and beyond.
Programme
Tent City, dir. Miñuca Villaverde, USA 1981, 31 min.
Mayami Nuestro, dir. Carlos Oteyza, USA 1981, 33 min.
Total runtime: 64 min.
Presented by Jonathan Ali, José Luis Aparicio and Cinema Mentiré. With thanks to Cinesa, Francisco Llinas, Filmoteca de Catalunya and Fernando and Miñuca Villaverde.
Cinema Mentiré is a pop-up film club bringing a taste of rare classic and contemporary Latin American films to UK audiences.
Jonathan Ali is a film curator and writer with a particular interest in critical Caribbean cinema.
José Luis Aparicio is a Cuban filmmaker and curator based in Madrid, Spain.
Jonathan Ali is a film curator and writer with a particular interest in critical Caribbean cinema.
José Luis Aparicio is a Cuban filmmaker and curator based in Madrid, Spain.
Book tickets
Sun, 27 Sep 2026
Cinema 1
05:30 pm
Ticket information
- All tickets that do not require ID (full price, disabled, income support) can be printed at home or stored in email
- For aged-based concession tickets (under 25, student) please bring relevant ID to collect at the front desk before the event.
Access information
Cinema 1
- Both our Cinemas have step free access from The Mall and are accessible by ramp
- We have 1 wheelchair allocated space with a seat for a companion
- All seats are hard back, have a crushed velvet feel and they do not recline
- These are our seat size dimensions: W 42 x D 45 x H 52
- Arm rest either side of the seat dimensions: L 27 x W 7 x H 20
for the following requirements:
- We have unassigned seating. If you require a specific seat, please reserve this in advance
- Free for visitors where ticket prices are a barrier, please email
All films are ad-free and 18+ unless otherwise stated, and start with a 10 min. curated selection of trailers.
Members+ and all Patrons gain free entry to all cinema screenings, exhibitions, talks, and more.
Join today as a Member+ for £25/month.
