Two Cuban Actors Disappear During Tribeca Film Festival Premiere, Apparently Defecting

Call it life imitating art.

Or maybe life imitating art imitating life.

Two out of three young adult actors who starred in the Cuban movie Una Noche disappeared the same day their plane touched down in Miami as they were on their way to New York for the Tribeca Film Festival, reports the Huffington Post. Their director, Lucy Malloy, told HuffPo, “I really was thinking that they were going to come here and enjoy the festival, and I thought they would love to participate in it…They made a decision, I guess.”

Una Noche tells the story of three Cuban teens trying to escape the Communist island nation.

The third actor remains in New York promoting the film and plans to return to Cuba. Dariel Arracheda, 20, told HuffPo he has his reasons. “I have my family there, my friends, my girlfriend,” he said. “Here, I don’t know anyone. Here, I don’t know the way of life. I also don’t know English very well,” he said in Spanish.

But Anailin de la Rua de la Torre and Javier Nunez Florian, both 20, remain somewhere in America, out of touch of their director and castmate. It was the first time either one of them had left Cuba.

Apparently, it’s also the last.

Photo: Still from Una Noche