One of the most versatile and prolific young filmmakers to emerge on the New York scene, Ricardo grew up in Havana, Cuba, near a cinema which soon became his backyard. He graduated from the presitigious Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) and obtained a Masters in Fine Arts (MFA) from NYU's Film program. He came to Germany in 2003 to the Berlinale's first Talent Campus and completed two of his best known documentary films, "Short Radiography of Hip Hop in Cuba" (2004) and the "Maji-Maji Readings" (2006), shot in Berlin. These two shorts on different Black Diasporic Experiences and Creativities will be screened and discussed with the filmmaker.

Amongst Ricardo Bacallao's most recent work, combining fiction and documentary genres, is "The Butterfly's Kiss" (2012) shot in Singapore, "Mondongo Cubano" (2014), a fictional Short set in the 1990's during Cuba's most devastating economic crisis since the Revolution and his latest feature
film, a political thriller, titled "The Uncle's Request" (2015). Back in Berlin, Bacallao is working on two documentary projects simultaneously, "Cubans on the Edge of the Berlin Wall" and "A State of Change" a portrait of the refugee movement in Berlin.

"Diaspora for me is a big journey, physical, spiritual, cultural, a journey that never stops" - Ricardo Bacallao.