The Rolling Stones: Havana Moon

The Rolling Stones: Havana Moon (2016)

The historic concert appearance of the British band in Cuba on March 25th, 2016. The "Concert for Amity" was and played at the Ciudad Deportiva Stadium - the bands first show in Cuba and the finale of their South America Tour.

Date of release
2016-09-23
TMDB
7.4 / 10 (26)
Runtime
1h 56m
Genres
Music, Documentary
Director
Paul Dugdale

Casting

Interesting facts

Havana Moon is a concert film by the Rolling Stones, directed by Paul Dugdale. Havana Moon was filmed on 25 March 2016 in Havana, Cuba. The film records a free outdoor concert by the band at the Ciudad Deportiva de la Habana sports complex, which was attended by an estimated 500,000 concert-goers. The concert marked the first time a rock band had performed in Cuba to such a large crowd, breaking the previous record of the Italian singer Zucchero Fornaciari, who performed to a crowd of nearly 70,000 goers in 2012. After a one night premiere on 23 September, the film was released in multiple formats on 11 November 2016.

Production

The concert was suggested by lawyer Gregory Elias to Rolling Stones manager Joyce Smyth during a phone call on 13 November 2015. Elias suggested that the Stones play a free concert in Cuba, which he would cover the costs of – to which Smyth responded "Well, that's certainly a unique proposal". The concert was bankrolled by Elias' charitable organization, Fundashon Bon Intenshon.

The concert was planned for several months prior to its public announcement while the band was on their 2016 tour of South America, titled América Latina Olé Tour 2016. The bands' manager, Joyce Smyth, and Concerts West worked extensively with the Cuban government in order for the show to be approved, due to the Cuban government still having control over what its citizens listen to.

The concert took place five days after President Barack Obama visited Cuba, marking the first time a sitting United States president had visited the island nation since the 30th President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, visited the nation 88 years earlier, in 1928. After it was announced that President Obama would arrive on 20 March 2016, the decision was made to reschedule the concert to 25 March, due to security concerns.

Prior to the show, the band were guests of honour at the British embassy in Cuba, which held a meet and greet on 24 March 2016 for approximately 200 people, many being Cuban musicians. The Rolling Stones also started a "musician-to-musician" charity initiative in which musical instruments were donated by major instrument suppliers to Cuban musicians of all genres.

Havana Moon had a limited one night premiere in over one thousand theatres internationally 23 September 2016. The film made its United States television premiere on the premium cable television service Starz 22 January 2017, but could be downloaded on the Starz app 15 January 2017. The sound track of the film was released on the iTunes Store and the music streaming service Spotify 11 November 2016.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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