When the news broke last week that President Obama was re-opening communication between the United States and Cuba - after five decades of Cold War-era status quo - Mari Aixala-Dawson's thoughts turned to a different time, a different century. It wasn't the same old stories of Fidel Castro, Russian missiles, or CIA shenanigans that captured the attention of Mari - a Miami-born filmmaker whose family had fled the Caribbean island in the wake of the 1959 overthrow of the Batista government.