YULI

Yuli is the nickname given to Carlos Acosta by his father, Pedro, who considers him the son of Ogun, an African god and a fighter. As a child Yuli avoids discipline and education, learning from the streets of an impoverished and abandoned Havana. His father, however, has other ideas, and knowing that his son has a natural talent for dance, sends him to the National Ballet School of Cuba. Despite his repeated escapes and initial poor behaviour, the boy is inevitably drawn to the world of dance, and begins to shape his legendary career from a young age, becoming the first black dancer to be cast in some of the most prestigious ballet roles, originally written for white dancers, in companies such as the Houston Ballet or the Royal Ballet in London.

Icíar Bollaín was born in Madrid in 1967. She began her career as an actress, performing in leading roles in films such as El Sur and Land and Freedom by Ken Loach, about whom she also wrote a book. In 1991 she became a shareholder in the production company La Iguana, where she worked as an assistant director and writer on several documentaries before making her feature film debut in 1995 with ¿Hola, estás sola? Her film Even the Rain won many prizes, among them the Panorama Audience Award at the 2011 Berlinale.

The life of Cuban dance sensation Carlos Acosta gets crowd-pleasing screen treatment in Iciar Bollain's uneven but vibrant bio-ballet.

Guy Lodge, Variety