Other Titles • For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story • The Arturo Sandoval Story (2000) • Havana Nocturne (2000)
Synopses for For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story (2000)
1.
For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story chronicles the life of a man torn between his home and his devotion to his music. In a Golden Globe-nominated performance, Andy Garcia portrays the gregarious, passionate, and obstinate Arturo Sandoval, the Grammy-winning Cuban trumpet player.
This HBO film shows how Sandoval's life in revolutionary Cuba is affected--beginning in the early 1970s--by his zeal for his music and by the limits placed on him by his homeland. Representing his torn loyalties are Dizzy Gillespie (the enigmatic jazz musician played by Charles S. Dutton) and Sandoval's wife, Marianela (played by the beautiful Mia Maestro). Gillespie embodies the freedom to follow one's dream, while Marianela represents family loyalty and the ideals of the Castro revolution. Yet, the same regime his wife embraces forces Arturo to play government-imposed music instead of the jazz that he loves. Sandoval travels the world, and while the Cuban government profits from his success, he is exposed to a freedom that eventually draws him to the difficult and life-changing decision he and his family feel compelled to make.
Against a backdrop of beautiful scenery and exceptional music, For Love or Country provides a harsh depiction of revolutionary Cuba, its outmoded lifestyle, and the restrictions placed on its people. --Mindy Ruehmann
2.
Andy Garcia stars as world-renowned Cuban trumpet player Arturo Sandoval in this moving portrait of his life in Cuba, his passion for jazz, and his eventual defection from his homeland in 1990. A passionate free thinker, Arturo struggled for personal and creative freedom in Cuban, experiencing a lifetime of artistic persecution. Despite strict revolutionary guidelines, Arturo played with the award-winning Cuban fusion band Irakere, receiving critical and commercial success while living under the shadow of Fidel Castro's dictatorship. In 1981, Sandoval left Irakere and formed his own band, desperate to play jazz by his own rules. A musical virtuoso, Sandoval lived to play his own brash brand of jazz, inspired by his mentor and longtime friend, American jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie (Charles S.Dutton). Ultimately, Arturo's love for his wife, Mariela (Mia Maestro), and his growing family forced him to stay in Cuba, constantly compromising his artistic freedom for the revolution. Finally, in 1990, after years of artistic frustration, Gillespie helped Arturo to defect with his wife and young son. The Sandovals' remarkable journey to freedom is conveyed through a series of flashbacks, as Arturo reflects on his passion for his country, his wife, and his ultimate desire for musical freedom. Andy Garcia gives an uplifting and moving performance as the jazz legend, swinging and bopping onstage to his own uncompromising rhythm. The film also features a fabulous supporting cast, including Latin superstar Gloria Estefan, and a rousing score from the legend himself, Arturo Sandoval.
3.
The U.S. Embassy is about to play host to a defectorÂ…and the defector is about to play for his life. Based on an incredible true story, For Love Or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story, tells the powerful tale of a Cuban musician with a trumpet, a few scratched American LPs, and a dream that would change his life forever.
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