The Santiago de Cuba Carnival is a national holiday renown throughout the world that takes place in July and is a celebration of the city's culture, community, and history. Lazaro and The Shark takes us into the world of Conga Competitions- a boisterous parade with music, dancers, costumes and rivalries. Lázaro, the leader of the Conga de Los Hoyos, is determined to win the coveted award bestowed to the neighborhood that presents the most spectacular Conga. Like leaders of rival congas, Lazaro must join with his neighbors and scour the strictly rationed marketplace to find the necessary materials to create a show-stopping performance. Director William Sabourin O'Reilly, an Afro-Cuban native of Havana, offers a rare window into communist Cuba, a country that is often romanticized, and almost always portrayed through the eyes of outsiders. As the competition approaches, we see much more than Lazaro’s desire to win a local honor. We are immersed in the essential fight of the Cuban nation: to continue to live in the legacy of a revolution that has left its people in a constant struggle of poverty, or embrace a more dangerous, vital vision of living in freedom.