Screen Cuba: Films to change the world

Memories of Underdevelopment (Memorias del subdesarrollo), dir. Tomas Gutierrez Alea, Cuba 1968, 104mins., Spanish with English subtitles, 15

This film by Alea, possibly Cuba’s greatest director, is the most internationally renowned work in the history of Cuban cinema. It explores the ambivalent thoughts of an anti-hero, privileged would-be writer Sergio as he faces a new uncertain life after his wife and family flee to the US between the Bay of Pigs invasion and the missile crisis and he chooses to stay. In 1968 and after, many saw it as a burning indictment of the passive intellectual. It’s an extraordinary example of 1960s filmmaking for several reasons. Made from the point of view of an ‘outsider’ complaining about and struggling to join in with the revolution, it asks the viewer where they stand. It is also intimate and densely layered, a collage of life in revolutionary Cuba is created using experimental editing techniques, archival footage, and spontaneously shot street scenes. The film was recently restored.

For the First Time (Por la primera vez), dir. Octavio Cortázar, Cuba 1967, 10mins., Spanish with English subtitles

Children and adults in a rural community watch a film for the first time in their lives. The entire documentary was shot on April 12, 1967 in the remote mountain village of Los Munos near Baracoa, and shows the ICAIC mobile cinema truck travelling to the village, as well as interviews with both the projectionists and villagers. Taking cinema to rural areas was an important part of the work of Cuba’s film institute, in the days when no-one had TVs and transport to towns was extremely difficult.

Introduced by Michael Chanan, filmmaker and writer, author of ‘Cuban Cinema’ (2003) and special guest from Cuba, Silvia Padrón Durán, director of La Manigua film and culture project for children and young people in Havana.

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