From Cuba to Calabria is a short documentary that follows a group of Cuban doctors who leave their families behind to serve a two-year medical mission in Calabria, Italy’s most impoverished region.

As Calabria’s public healthcare system buckles under staff shortages, austerity, and decades of economic neglect, Cuban physicians step into hospitals and clinics struggling to stay open, to fill the void. In a region where the ’Ndrangheta mafia has siphoned public funds, infiltrated construction and healthcare contracts, and drained resources meant for social services, entire communities have been left with fragile access to care.

The film begins in Cuba, capturing the doctors’ final days at home before their departure, and follows them as they navigate language barriers, cultural differences, and political controversy abroad. Celebrated as heroes in Cuba yet denounced by some U.S. officials as participants in “forced labor,” the mission becomes a lens into a much larger debate about international solidarity, global health inequality, and who gets to define humanitarian aid.

From Cuba to Calabria offers rare inside access to a Cuban medical mission in Europe — revealing the human stories behind a program that has become both a lifeline for underserved communities and a flashpoint in international politics.