Watch Elian

Elian is the story of Elian Gonzalez, a five-year-old Cuban boy plucked from the Florida Straits, and how the fight for his future changed the course of U.S.-Cuba relations. Featuring personal testimony, interviews, and a news archive, this documentary recounts Elian’s remarkable rescue on Thanksgiving Day in 1999, after his mother and 10 others fleeing Cuba perished at sea, and the custody battle between the boy’s Cuban father and his Miami-based relatives. Offering a portrait of Elian today, the film is a story about the challenges of reconciliation among members of a once-close family, reflecting the divisions of the Cuban people and the complicated relations between Cuba and the United States.

Elian is a 2017 documentary with a runtime of 1 hour and 48 minutes. It has received mostly positive reviews from critics and viewers, who have given it an IMDb score of 6.9 and a MetaScore of 66.