This Film Used To Be About Rum

Okay, here it goes: During the Cold War, Cuba racked up a giant debt with Czechoslovakia. Since then, the Eastern Bloc collapsed, one half of Czechoslovakia became the Czech Republic and Cuba stood frozen in time. That big Cold War-era debt survives, however. And so, negotiations have recently begun for Cuba to make good on all the cash it still owes the Czechs.

Its preferred form of payment, according to The Guardian—rum.

One hundred and thirty years’ worth, in fact.

Again—of rum.

That’s a fun story, right? We thought so, too. So we went to Cuba to tell it, and learned that you can’t just make a puff piece in an active military dictatorship.