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Hello Hemingway is a 1990 Cuban drama film directed by Fernando Pérez and starring Laura de la Uz. The plot, set in Havana in 1956, near the end of Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship, follows a young girl whose aspirations to obtain a scholarship in America against all odds are paralleled by her reading of Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. The film was selected as the Cuban entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 64th Academy Awards, but was not designated a nominee.[1]
In 1956, sixteen-year-old Larita lives with her mother and her aunt's family in a ramshackle house outside Havana. From their garden they can see Ernest Hemingway's white mansion. At home, she adorns her walls with pictures of Elvis Presley and Tony Curtis, while at school she excels in her English class. Larita is delighted when her teacher suggests that she enter a competition for a scholarship to attend university in the United States. Larita also happily dates a classmate, Victor, who is trying to establish a student association.
On a visit to a bookshop, she is given a copy of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, which she starts to read avidly, drawing parallels between the novel and her own life which she records in her diary. At home, her family tease her about her academic aspirations. They resent the fact that while they work hard she studies and contributes nothing to their meager existence. The issue of finances becomes more acute when Larita is sent home from school because she is not wearing the correct uniform. However, she passes the first round of scholarship exams and is invited to a reception for the finalists. She makes herself as presentable as possible with the help of her relatives' sewing skills and the support of her grandmother, who pawns her treasured earrings to purchase fabric. She tells Victor that she has been shortlisted for the scholarship, which makes him angry because she has kept it a secret from him and is preparing to go abroad and abandon him for a year. That night Larita returns home to find that her uncle, whose salary was the family's principal means of support, has been fired from his job as a policeman.
奨学金面接で、ラリタは非嫡出子であることと、推薦状を書いてくれるような人脈がないことが、彼女のチャンスを阻んでいるように見えた。絶望したラリタは、ヘミングウェイを訪ねて推薦状を書いてもらえるかどうか尋ねることにしたが、彼がアフリカにいることを知る。ラリタは、貧困と非嫡出子であることで不利な立場に置かれているのは母親のせいだと激しく非難する。彼女が病気のふりをして学校を休んでいると、お気に入りの教師であるマルティネス先生が彼女を訪ねて励ましてくれる。ラリタが貧困について不満を言うと、マルティネス先生は「あなたは橋の下で暮らしているわけではないでしょう」と言う。一方、学校では生徒の抗議活動が最高潮に達し、生徒会は生徒に授業のボイコットを呼びかけ、ビクターは逮捕される。
その年の後半、ラリタはコーヒーバーで働き始める。イースターの頃のある晩、奨学金担当者が通りかかり、彼女に気づく。二人はお互いを知っていることを確認するが、担当者がラリタに楽しい休日を過ごすようにと簡潔に伝える以外、何も話さない。
この映画は2002年4月にアメリカでDVDとして発売された。映画はスペイン語で、英語字幕が付いている。