Filming for "Comandante Fritz" begins: Pavel Giroud's new spy film revisits Cuban courtship with East Germany

Filming of the new romantic comedy “Comandante Fritz,” directed by Cuban filmmaker Pavel Giroud, has finally begun on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria. The film stars Dennis Mojen and Yany Prado, among other actors from both Cuba and Germany.

“Comandante Fritz,” tells the story of the young Stasi officer Fritz (Mojen), who is sent to Havana amid the handover of “Ernesto Thälmann Island.” The island, located off the Cuban coast, was a gift from Fidel Castro to Soviet era East Germany as a gesture to embolden the close friendship between the socialist states during the Cold War.

In the film, Fritz's mission is to thwart a possible CIA attack against communist leaders, but the mission does not go according to plan.

Under the sun of the Caribbean island, the film’s central character also meets the mysterious Cuban Lola (Prado), and “with her, the war for Commander Fritz suddenly begins.”

“It is not as cold as it should be,” one German media outlet reported on Thursday.

The main roles are Dennis Mojen as Comandante Fritz, and Cuban actress Yany Prado as Lola, who celebrated her entry to the big screen with the international hit series Sky Rojo.

They are being supported by a strong German-Cuban cast with actors Christina Grobe, Alexis Valdés, Vladimir Cruz, Fidel Betancourt, as well as Rainer Reiners and Lena Kalisch.

For his part, director Pavel Giroud, whose films “The Age of the Peseta” and “The Companion” were nominated for Oscars race as the best foreign language films for Cuba, now resides in Spain.

His most recent production, “El Caso Padilla,” won the Platinum Award for Best Ibero-American Documentary Film, after having its world premiere in Telluride and later presented in San Sebastián.

Giroud wrote the script with Arturo Infante, and Félix Novo de Oliviera was in charge of the film's photography direction. The film's music is composed by Cuban pianist Ernán López-Nussa, widely considered one of the most prominent and influential jazz musicians on the island.

Comandante Fritz will be filmed entirely in Gran Canaria until the end of April.

The film, produced for the international market, will also be released in German cinemas in 2025, although a date has not yet been specified.