Madagascar (1994) is a Cuban film that marked Fernando Pérez's change of direction into a more lyrical approach to filmmaking, somehow stripped from the realistic documentary feel of his early work. The film chronicles the relationship and lack of communication between a mother and daughter during the Cuban economic crisis known as the Special Period.

Plot

Madagascar was originally conceived as the first part of a trilogy to be entitled 'Pronóstico del tiempo' ("Weather Prediction"). The production and post-production of director Fernando Pérez's third fiction film was completed in September 1993 to await the preparation of the work's other two parts: 'Melodrama' ("Melodrama," dir. Rolando Díaz) and 'Quiéreme y verás' ("Love me and you’ll see," dir. Daniel Díaz Torres). The three directors had worked together to develop their ideas for the creation of the project, but in the end, according to Pérez, the films wound up lacking the necessary continuity necessary to bind them together. Partly as a result of such concerns over their contents, and partly in response to the delays produced by an ongoing shortage of production funds for Díaz's and Díaz Torres' works, each wound up being released independently. During December 1994, over one year after the completion of its post-production, Madagascar first appeared in Cuba's theatres as part of the annual New Latin American Film Festival held in Havana.