Tomás Gutiérrez Alea

Through the files of Cuban cinema news program Noticieros ICAIC Latinoamericanos, the documentary shows the most relevant events of the second half of the 20th century as seen by the documentary filmmakers of the island. During three decades and under the general direction of Santiago Álvarez, these moviemakers witnessed almost everything: from the shivers of the Cold War to Bola de Nieve's piano solos; from the discovery of the killing fields in Cambodia to the Carnation Revolution in Portugal. In 2009, the original negatives of Noticieros ICAIC Latinoamericanos were declared part of the "world memory" by UNESCO.

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A look at the life and work of Cuban filmmaker Tomas Gutierrez Alea.

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Contemporary film critics regard the epic film I Am Cuba as a modern masterpiece. The 1964 Cuban/Soviet coproduction marked a watershed moment of cultural collaboration between two nations. Yet the film never found a mass audience, languishing for decades until its reintroduction as a "classic" in the 1990s. Vicente Ferraz explores the strange history of this cinematic tour de force, and the deeper meaning for those who participated in its creation.

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Documentary about the relationship between filmmaker Glauber Rocha and Cuba.

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Documentary in four parts on Latin American cinema. Fourth episode: in Cuba, the ICAIC, created in the aftermath of the Castro revolution, is at once a film school, a production company and a state cultural branch. Cuban filmmakers testify to the situation and themes specific to their national cinema.

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A couple faces various difficulties due to the new realities that accompany the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

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A photo montage of Cubans filmed by Agnès Varda during her visit to Cuba in 1963, four years after Fidel Castro came to power. This black & white documentary explores their socialist culture and society while making use of 1500 pictures (out of 4000!) the filmmaker took while on the island.

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During the 'Special Period', the members of a funeral procession cross paths with truckdrivers who have to take the same route, and begin to talk about God and the world. They discover that life for both groups has many similarities, as well as a lot of differences.

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Matanzas, Cuba, 1913. Two young people who are in love communicate through letters written by penman. When the young man leaves town, to become a pilot, the girl discovers she is really in love with the one who wrote the letters.

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A theater director and script-writer falls for a female worker from the Havana docks, but his machismo, social and working conflicts, and the Cuban woman's condition interfere with their relationship.

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A bourgeois Cuban family of aristocratic origin locks itself into its mansion when the Cuban Revolution comes to power, waiting for the new regime to be overthrown. As time passes, they regress to older and older systems of political order, from capitalism to feudalism to "primitive savagery."

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A pious plantation owner attempts to teach Christianity to 12 of his slaves by inviting them to participate in a reenactment of the Last Supper.

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Based on the novel Francisco by Anselmo Suárez y Romero, "The Other Francisco" is a socio-economic analysis of slavery and class struggle through the retelling of the original novel. The film contrasts the romantic conceptions of plantation life found in Suárez Romero's novel with a realistic expose of the actual historical conditions of slavery throughout the Americas. It offers a critical analysis of the novel, showing how the author's social background led to his use of particular dramatic structures to convey his liberal, humanitarian viewpoint.

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In 1672 Cuban revolutionaries launch an uprising against the Spanish who are occupying the country. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2017.

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In the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs incident, Sergio chooses to stay behind in Cuba while his wife and family escape to neighboring Miami. Alone in a brave new world, Sergio observes the constant threat of foreign invasion while chasing young women all over Havana. He finally meets Elena, a young girl he seeks to mould into the image of his ex-wife, but at what cost to himself?

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A model Cuban revolutionary tragically dies at work and, as a badge of honor, is buried with his labor card in his suit pocket. When his widow attempts to apply for his pension, the pension office demands the original labor card. Desperate, his nephew embarks on an increasingly chaotic and surreal quest through the Cuban bureaucratic system to secure permission to exhume the body, only to be met with endless forms, contradictory regulations, and apathetic officials.

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A Haitian son returns from fifteen years in Cuba to find his home village afflicted with the double plague of drought and strife. A Cuban production from the director of Memories of Underdevelopment. In Spanish.

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When her country is taken over by socialist revolutionaries, a wealthy woman can't bear to give up all of her wealth and possessions to the new government, so she hides all of her treasures in the 12 chairs of a dining-room set. After her death her nephew finds out what she had done and, since the chairs had been "nationalized" and are now in the possession of a dozen different people, he sets out to track them down and get the treasures he believes rightfully belong to him.

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A film about the Cuban Revolution told from three different perspectives.

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A short film based on a story by Franz Kafka. Two men meet to resolve an issue, but are unable to do so due to a series of adverse circumstances.

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