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The Cuban singer-songwriter Adrián Berazaín shook social media with a phrase that blends dark humor and deep pain: he tells his son every day that the reality they live is a game, and that if they win the prize, it will be a war tank, in a direct comparison to the Italian film "Life is Beautiful."
"I already tell my son every day that this is a game and that if we win, the prize will be a tank," Berazaín wrote on his Facebook profile, without further explanation.
Those who know the film by Roberto Benigni understood immediately: the singer-songwriter identifies with Guido, the Jewish father who, in fascist Italy of 1944, turns his deportation to a Nazi concentration camp into an imaginary game to protect the innocence of his young son.
The parallel drawn by Berazaín is devastating.
In the film awarded three Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actor, the boy Giosuè believes that accumulating a thousand points will earn him a real tank as a prize.
In the Cuban version, the "tank" is a visa, a passport, or simply the freedom to leave the country.
The reaction of hundreds of Cubans was immediate and unanimous in its harshness. "Bro, I don't know anymore if life is beautiful or if we are just kids in striped pajamas," wrote one user.
Another one was more straightforward: "All we're missing is the striped pajamas."
Rey Rodríguez Vázquez summed it up plainly: "We are living in Auschwitz."
Some comments deepened the parallel with fascism. Rafael Andrés Dorta Herrera developed the metaphor: "The concentration camp has long been armed. Schindler has, in this case, been a lifeboat, a work contract, the drum, the parole, to ride and hook someone who takes the prisoner, marked with the number on his conscience, out of the camp and makes him a slave in the style of Orwell."
Harold Esteris Hechavarria was even more explicit about what they expect as an outcome: "Perhaps when we win the war, it will be because the allies come to liberate the land and our Hitler has fallen. Then life will be beautiful."
Elizabeth Rivero Carmona pointed out a key difference between fiction and reality in Cuba: "At least in the movie, it was clear who the good guys were and who the bad guys were."
Yury Joel González took the comparison to the extreme: "I believe those people in the concentration camps lived better than we do; at least there they had schedules. Here, you can't plan anything."
The context surrounding Berazaín's publication is not abstract.
Cuba is experiencing its worst humanitarian crisis in decades in 2026: the electrical deficit exceeded 2,200 MW on June 26, a historical record, while in provinces such as Matanzas and Santiago de Cuba, power outages reach 72 hours with only one or two hours of electricity per day.
In addition, 33.9% of Cuban households face persistent hunger, the country only has 30% of its essential medicines available, and 89% of the population lives in extreme poverty.
The Minister of Energy admitted that between December 2025 and May 2026, Cuba operated without fuel reserves.
In May 2025, Berazaín described ETECSA's new plans as "armed robbery" for limiting balance top-ups, and in 2023, he was seen queuing for gasoline in Havana like any other citizen.
"I just want a happy ending. And yes, life is beautiful. Extremely beautiful. So much so that I no longer want to play this game. I want to live it, not just survive it," summarized Roxana Fragoso Morales, in a phrase that captures what millions of Cubans feel trapped in this "game" that no one chose.
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