Two young stars of a Cuban film featured in a New York film festival never showed up for their movie’s screening and are believed to have slipped away in Miami.
Two actors with roles in a Cuban movie about young people trying to flee the communist island arrived last week in the United States to promote the film — and promptly disappeared, reportedly after their plane landed in Miami.
Anailín de la Rua de la Torre and Javier Núñez Florian portray two of the stars in the movie Una Noche. Filmed in Havana, the movie is about three young Cubans who, for various reasons, decide to try to escape the island for a new life in the United States.
Una Noche was scheduled for the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. But when the film had its screening in New York City on Thursday, only one of the three actors appeared.
“Only Dariel Arrechada attended the Tribeca Film Festival premiere screening of Una Noche on Thursday, April 19,” a statement from the film festival said. “We have not had any contact with Anailín de la Rua de la Torre or with Javier Núñez Florian.”
The Huffington Post website reported Sunday that Arrechada said all three were supposed to be in New York on Friday, but Núñez Florian and de la Rua de la Torre stayed in Miami. Arrechada also told The Huffington Post that he believed the two would remain in the United States.
Arrechada told the website that he could not reach the other actors and did not know where they were. He added that he would return to the island this week.
All three stars were first-time film actors, according to press materials for the film. De la Rua de la Torre was a tae kwon do champion in Havana when a casting assistant discovered her on the beach, according to the film’s biography of her. Núñez Florian was training to become a chef when he submitted his photo, his biography said.
Arrechada and the film’s British director, Lucy Mulloy, could not be reached for comment Sunday.
If the pair did try to stay in the United States, it would not be the first time a film artist has come to the United States from Cuba for Tribeca and not returned.
In 2009, Cuban filmmaker Laimir Fano Villaescusa received a special jury mention at Tribeca for Oda a la Piña. He didn’t return to Cuba, instead asking for political asylum in the United States.
A U.S. State Department spokesman had no immediate comment Sunday.
El Nuevo Herald staff writer Daniel Shoer Roth contributed to this report, which includes reporting by The Associated Press.