250,000 teenagers changed a nation in one year — and nobody told you.
Cuba, 1961: 250,000 volunteers taught 700,000 people to read and write in one year. 100,000 of the teachers were under 18 years old. Over half were women. MAESTRA explores this story through the personal testimonies of the young women who went out to teach literacy in rural communities across the island - and found themselves deeply transformed in the process.
Direction
Murphy lets the women speak — no narrator needed.
Production
Archival footage that feels impossibly intimate.
Director
Catherine Murphy
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Catherine Murphy spent 10 years finding these women; many had never been interviewed before.
The campaign dropped Cuba's illiteracy rate from 23.6% to 3.9% in 1961 — still unmatched globally.
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