Pope Francis, the 266th pontiff of the Catholic Church, died on Monday at age 88, the Vatican has announced. Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell, the Vatican’s Camerlengo of the Apostolic Chamber, made the following statement: “Dearest brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis. At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the house of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of His Church. He taught us to live the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage, and universal love, especially in favor of the poorest and most marginalized. With immense gratitude for his example as a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we commend the soul of Pope Francis to the infinite merciful love of the One and Triune God.” In Rome, mourning bells were ringing in all the churches.

Francis, the first Latin American pope, was elected in March 2013 at a historic moment for the Church, following the resignation of Benedict XVI. Joseph Ratzinger stepped down exhausted and defeated by the palace intrigues and corruption in the Curia, and for finding himself powerless to undertake the internal reforms required by the Vatican, from the Holy See’s financial institutions to the sexual abuse scandal. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, an Argentine Jesuit, was chosen to undertake a renewal of the Catholic Church, to modernize it and push through pending reforms. With a sometimes impulsive and energetic character, he certainly stirred up a gale in social matters, with his unprecedented criticism of the current capitalist system, and in internal reforms, albeit with mixed results, causing deep divisions along the way.

For the most conservative sector of the Church, he even went too far. A genuine front opened against him, among those who viewed him practically as a dangerous left-wing populist. But the enormous expectations he aroused also disappointed the most progressive sectors, who expected more profound changes in the reform of the Curia, the ordination of women, and sexual doctrine, as well as greater collegiality in decision-making. In one of the Church’s key issues, the fight against pedophilia, he was deeply involved with drastic regulations and decisions — he forced the entire Chilean bishops’ conference to resign — but the rest of the hierarchy, the bishops and the Vatican bureaucracy, did not always follow his lead and put up resistance.

Pope Francis’ 12 years at the head of the Catholic Church witnessed a revolution in many areas, starting with the fact that for nine years, two pontiffs cohabited together, until Ratzinger’s death on December 31, 2022. This situation generated plenty of debate at the time, but the passing of the years showed that it led to hardly any issues. And it set a precedent.

What is certain is that, in his election alone, Francis was a pioneer in many aspects: the first Latin American pope, the first non-European pontiff since the 5th century, the first Jesuit pope, and the first one to be called Francis, a choice of name that said it all. No pontiff before had dared to name himself after a radical saint who stood up to Vatican pomp and dedicated his life to the needy. He chose the name because of the words the Brazilian cardinal, Claudio Hummes, said to him as he embraced him after his election: “Don’t forget the poor.” Francis did not do so, and he also set himself aside from the traditional uses and customs of the office, seeking simplicity and directness.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a descendant of Piedmontese Italian immigrants, was born in Buenos Aires in 1936 to a humble family in the Flores neighborhood. He graduated in chemistry, then studied philosophy and joined the Jesuits in 1958. He was named provincial superior of the order in Argentina between 1973 and 1979, during the military dictatorship, and from his position he helped several politically persecuted people to flee. This experience marked his political vision, as did the fact that he was the son of immigrants, and his youthful enthusiasm for Peronism.

However, he was then relegated for a few years within the society, a period he himself defined as “dark,” until 1992 when he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires by John Paul II. From then on, his stature grew — he became a cardinal in 2001 — to the point that, in 2005, after the death of Karol Józef Wojtyla, he was a clear papal candidate and one of the most-voted in the conclave. However, Benedict XVI was elected, a recourse to continuity after the long pontificate of John Paul II, at a time when the course the Church should follow was uncertain.

Ratzinger’s resignation placed the Vatican back in the same position, and on that occasion, Bergoglio was quickly elected. He was 76 years old and it was already intuited that his pontificate would be brief, but a period of reforming impetus was sought. Francis’ revolution was mainly in the social sphere and in his open criticism of the excesses of the current economic system, the most direct of any pontiff to date. He harbored a special concern for ecology and climate change, an issue to which he dedicated no less than his first encyclical, Laudato sì (Praise Be to You), in 2015 (the previous one, Lumen fidei (The Light of Faith), from 2013, was actually one that Benedict XVI had left half-finished and he completed). He further incised his critique in the next, Fratelli Tutti (All Brothers, 2020), which lambasted neoliberalism and populism. The fourth and last, Dilexit nos (He loved us, 2024), was the most theological and spiritual, a call to act with the heart, beyond the logic of money and the cold calculation of algorithms.

Francis navigated the Church into the 21st century, facing its current dilemmas (and, as of 2016, with an Instagram account). He forged still uncertain paths that it will be up to his successor to decide how best to travel: the fraternal acceptance of homosexuals and transsexuals, allowing the blessing of couples, and allowing them to be godparents; the entry of women into high positions in the Curia and a call to “de-masculinize the Church” — although he froze the most controversial issue, that of female ordination — and the outreach to divorcees who have remarried.

If there is one word that sums up the priority of his mandate, it is “periphery,” those who are on the margins of society, of the cities, of the frontiers, those who are far from power. It can be seen in his travels — 47 visits to 66 countries — in which he almost always avoided the great powers or countries with a strong Catholic tradition, such as Spain, where he never set foot. He only considered going to the Canary Islands because of the crisis of migrant arrivals from Africa. His first trip, in fact, defined his line from the outset: it was to the Italian island of Lampedusa, a point of arrival for migrants. To them and to all people, believers and non-believers, he wanted to leave a message in his autobiography, published in January 2025, reduced to a single word, the title of the book: hope.

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There are few things left to achieve in the entertainment industry once one arrives at EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony) status. Viola Davis (United States, 59 years old) is one of the few people who have achieved this milestone. Specifically, the 18th person in history. And after filming The Woman King in Cape Town, South Africa, she returned at the beginning of 2024 to complete G20. The film, directed by Patricia Riggen, debuted on Amazon Prime Video on April 10 and doesn’t hide its inspiration from 1990s action blockbusters, specifically Bruce Willis’s Die Hard and Harrison Ford’s Air Force One.

When an armed group attacks a G20 summit in South Africa, U.S. president Danielle Sutton (played by Davis) becomes its primary target. After avoiding being captured by the attackers, she turns to her combat experience as a former member of the military in order to protect her family, defend her country, and save the world’s leaders. G20 goes well beyond the novelty of seeing a Black woman play the president of the United States. “It’s about controlling your own narrative, which in my case is how I make my living,” explains the actress during a break from filming in South Africa, where this publication traveled at an invitation from the streaming platform.

It was in the pursuit of that goal that Davis and her husband Julius Tennon co-founded JuVee Productions. Their company creates content for film, television and theater that looks to promote diversity in the culture and entertainment industries. “I did it so that I didn’t have to depend on what movie and television studios can offer you, because that could be material that doesn’t have anything to do with what you’re looking for. If it’s in your hands, you have to be the change you’re looking for, and search out your own stories. You have to teach the world how it should treat you,” says the actress.

“Once when I was presenting Doubt with Meryl Streep at New York’s Lincoln Center, they asked her what kind of stories she liked to tell. She answered, ‘How many people are there in this venue, 800? Well, there are as many stories as people here.’ I think similarly. I want to tell a range of unlimited stories,” says Davis. “When I was a little girl and they told me stories, there were times that I didn’t want to be the princess who waits around, but rather, the warrior who cuts the dragon’s head off. And this is my opportunity to make those dreams more real for people who have never been included in them.”

Spectacular, deep characters

Covered in fake sweat and bruises created with makeup, Davis faces the last days of filming aboard a helicopter surrounded by green screens. The gigantic vehicle is going to be the protagonist of one of the film’s most spectacular scenes. “I came from filming The Woman King, where I was doing action scenes five hours a day for three months, so I had already done the training for G20,” says the actress, who has done without stunt doubles for most of the day’s work.

The producer of G20, Andrew Lazar, and the movie’s director, Patricia Riggen, who previously shot several episodes of the series Jack Ryan and Dopesick, were looking to put a spin on the action genre, beyond having a woman as their star. “Often, great action movies are so focused on being spectacular that they lose focus when it comes to constructing complex characters that also elicit emotions in the viewer,” Lazar says on the South African set of the movie.

Lazar wanted the story to be “down to earth,” with a U.S. president who, in addition to saving the world, is the mother of teenage children. He also wanted the story’s location to be changed from Gibraltar, as was originally planned, to a place like Cape Town, which is large enough to host an international gathering like the G20.

For years, the legislative capital of South Africa has been an important filming location for international projects. While the movie was being shot in early 2024 in another part of the city, the giant recording studios on the metropolis’ outskirts are home to projects like the third season of The Wheel of Time, a fantasy universe on Prime Video, and the second season of Netflix’s live-action adaptation of the popular long-running anime One Piece.

World-class villain

Antony Starr, the actor who plays the role in the satirical superhero series The Boys, which is also in the Prime Video catalogue, seemed like the perfect choice to bring to life G20’s Rutledge. The villain is reminiscent of German terrorist Hans Gruber, as whom Alan Rickman made his film debut in Die Hard.

Both Davis and her spouse were involved as producers in the casting of Starr in the role of the antagonist. Beyond her own on-screen chemistry with the actor, the actress saw in him “a certain commitment to this profession that leads him to go one step further than normal to make his characters memorable.”

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Vicente Borrero has sunburned skin and wears a hole-ridden tuxedo, a dirty old cap and faded shorts. His eyes appear to always be looking away, always on the verge of tears.

Vicente looks like the last survivor from the village of Jicotea, in Santiago de Cuba, a post-war man who saw it all and lived it all. In his house, built with a zinc roof and plank walls, through which any torrential rain can penetrate, Vicente has been waiting for someone for a long time. The day that Yasser Sosa traveled more than 90 miles to find him, Vicente couldn’t believe it. He looked at the visitor and told him that he was probably just like all the others, who had passed by the village for years, promising to help him.

Vicente doesn’t know it yet, but, in a few days, he’ll have a new home. He will leave the space where he’s lived for 77 years and move to a cement house that’s not far away. It has a garden and a front porch.

Vicente doesn’t walk like other people. Due to a congenital defect, he’s learned to move nimbly, using the strength of his arms and feet to traverse rocky paths on a daily basis. A few days ago, someone saw him crawling through a local park and notified Guillermo Rodríguez, a 34-year-old journalist from Ciego de Ávila. For at least three years, Guillermo has been raising money from Cubans on and off the island to buy houses for the homeless. The country currently has a deficit of 862,000 properties, according to data from the National Statistics Office (ONEI). However, unofficial figures suggest that there are some 1.2 million homeless Cubans, while thousands more reside in overcrowded or almost-marginal conditions.

Rodríguez asked Sosa, his right-hand man in Santiago de Cuba, to locate Vicente immediately. After finding him, he turned to his Facebook followers and told them who Vicente was: a disabled, unmarried man with no children, who had been in a wheelchair for more than 10 years. Vicente’s parents — his only support system — died a long time ago. He lives on a monthly pension of 1,500 Cuban pesos (a little over $5) from the state, enough to eat just once every two days.

It took three days to raise 210,000 Cuban pesos ($583). Rodríguez subsequently allocated 180,000 pesos ($500) to purchase the house. With the rest of the funds, he’ll furnish it with appliances that Vicente has never had. Rodríguez did the same thing over a month ago for Benito, a single father living in the center of the island, in a house made of planks with a dirt floor, and his 10-month-old baby. With 1.6 million pesos (more than $4,400), the volunteers acquired a two-story home and everything the father needed to start over.

There are days when Rodríguez searches for medicine for a mother, who is frightened by her daughter’s scabies. Sometimes he tries to get a wheelchair for a sick person, or a rice cooker for a housewife. He and his team are the ones who show up with a bar of soap or a package of spaghetti to give away, or they offer to carry a donated mattress for an elderly man who has nowhere to sleep.

It’s a silent solidarity movement. “A chain of favors,” Rodríguez notes. “Yesterday, two people went to pick up donated nebulizers for their children with asthma: they arrived with medicines to give to someone else, in case they needed them. The number of vulnerable, abandoned people is numerous. In Cuba, a network of support and empathy has been created […] in a country so devastated, people cling to that. In Cuba, only neighbors can help each other out.”

For several years now, Cubans haven’t waited around for their government. The state has left them orphaned, deprived of everything. Some say they feel betrayed, as if the authorities have turned their backs on them. Those who receive remittances from abroad are freed from depending on the increasingly scarce rationed food that the government barely guarantees. Those who manage to get into business are navigating shortages of all kinds, in a country with a collapsed, dependent economy that ended 2024 with an inflation rate of 24.88%. Tourism is increasingly depressed due to the lack of travel, while the private sector is impeded from growing. Today, in Cuba, according to studies, around 89% of families live in extreme poverty. In many cases, activists or civil society organizations fill the gaps in the ever-increasing space left by the government. And, after stepping in, almost all of them end up targeted by the political police, or are forced to abandon their work.

“The help I give is a way of denouncing the system”

“I need Clonazepam for my daughter,” says a desperate mother, in a WhatsApp group named Manos a la Obra (“Let’s get to work”). Soon, someone offers to share theirs. Groups of this type are increasingly popping up on social media. In these online forums, Cubans often share, distribute and exchange medicines. On the island — as the government itself has acknowledged — more than 460 medications are in short supply in the state pharmacies. Some people, faced with the possibility of death due to lack of treatment or surgery, launch GoFundMe campaigns to request humanitarian visas, or financial donations to cover a patient’s transfer to a hospital beyond the island.

Art historian and activist Yamilka Lafita — who has helped launch some of the most visible campaigns in recent years — asserts that, without knowing how or since when, it’s Cuban civil society that has united to survive. “In Cuba today, there are no supplies, treatments, reagents… there aren’t even doctors to perform operations. And these campaigns are a way to denounce the public health system, which is just another cog in the wheel of this failed state,” Lafita laments. She has helped transport children with cancer or in need of transplants to hospitals in Spain or the United States, so that they can receive treatment and surgeries. “Some people tell me: ‘You’re putting Band-Aids on the dictatorship.’ But I’m not putting Band-Aids on it, because my help denounces the system. Every contribution you make — whether it’s getting a humanitarian visa, or donating two syringes — helps a Cuban survive in poverty.”

Some Cubans attest that this is the greatest crisis of all time, even worse than the so-called Special Period (1991-2000), which began following the collapse of the Soviet Union. They base their testimony on the lack of hope people have for immediate change, but mostly on what can be seen on the street: an emigration of almost two million Cubans in about three years; people dying without medical care; retirees whose pensions are insufficient; or people seen sleeping on the streets, something they say was unheard of in the 1990s. The Cuban authorities acknowledge some 3,690 people “displaying wandering behavior,” but this is believed to be an undercount. José Daniel Ferrer, a renowned political leader from the eastern part of the island, knows this firsthand. Since his release from prison at the beginning of the year (following negotiations between the Cuban government and the Vatican), he’s been feeding hundreds of people. Every day, they come to his house, looking for food. With aid that he receives from abroad, Ferrer and his family distribute more than a thousand hot meals each afternoon, handing them out to people who don’t receive state support. The difference, according to the opposition leader, is that Cuba, today, is a place where there’s food for those who have money.

“In the early 1990s, the situation was such that, even if you had money, you couldn’t get much. You couldn’t move from one place to another, because the roads were deserted and there were barely any vehicles moving,” he recalls. “Now, if you have money, you can’t go to bed without eating, because there are products in dollars — very expensive — and there are MSMEs (micro, small and medium-sized private enterprises). But for those elderly people who live on a thousand-something pesos in retirement, the hunger is as terrible, even worse than what we suffered from during the Special Period. They depend on what arrives at the grocery store… and almost nothing ever arrives. So, some people are faring worse.”

In Cuba, there’s also talk of the “new rich.” This is in stark contrast to what the Cuban government denied for years: social classes in a country where everyone was supposedly “equal.” These are people who come and go from the island; they often run businesses. Many of them can be seen in the increasingly common luxury cars — such as Mercedes-Benzes, Audis, or Chevrolets — that roll through Havana’s streets. However, what nobody is spared from, what affects everyone across the board, are the blackouts, the almost-daily power outages across the country. This electricity crisis is due to the lack of maintenance at the aging thermoelectric plants, as well as the reduction in fuel arriving from allied nations, such as Venezuela.

This is something that Cubans have also tried to take control of: in the absence of a state to resolve the energy crisis that has worsened since last year, some in the diaspora send light generators, small solar panels, candles and flashlights from abroad. But the truth is that these, too, are running out. Life becomes dark for everyone, equally. In this case, it’s the Cuban government that has sought help from abroad. And, once again, it’s relying on Russia to finally pull the country out of its massive energy crisis. But that, according to economists, won’t be enough, so long as the government persists in its centralized economic model.

“Cubans have remained stuck in the Cold War view of trade relations. They believe that Russia, China and others should help them, because they’re confronting the United States and are an important player for the great powers,” says economist Ricardo Torres, a former researcher at the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy at the University of Havana and a professor at American University in Washington, D.C. “I’m not sure the Russians see it that way. Such support would be very important for Cuba, but [the Cuban government] has never been interested in doing what it needs to do with its economic model to become a more reliable counterpart.”

More than six decades after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, it seems clear that it won’t be Russia that saves the country, nor activists who will heal the sick and provide housing for all the homeless Cubans. According to the Cuban Constitution, the state is responsible for ensuring the well-being of the population. But people believe there’s one thing that the government — which has stopped taking charge of almost everything — does handle perfectly: control. It maintains a heavy level of repression, allocating all kinds of reinforcements to ensure this. In a country that’s unable to guarantee food, electricity, or medical care, more than 1,000 political prisoners are held in its jails.

“In Cuba, if a person suffers from a medical emergency, it’s likely that an ambulance will take hours to come, if it arrives at all,” activist Carolina Barrero sighs. “But, if that same person shouts ‘Down with Raúl Castro!’ in the street, police patrols and state security agents will appear within minutes to detain and interrogate them. This shows that the regime’s inability to provide basic services isn’t simply due to scarcity, but to a deliberate political will. Castroism has always been in the hands of an extractive elite, who are more interested in maintaining [Cuba’s] international facade than in the well-being of the people.”

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