Santiago Álvarez x 3
We have several dozen Cuban films in our archives, allowing us to document the inspiration and creativity of filmmakers who, shortly after the Cuban revolution, devoted their cameras to documenting daily life, individual questions and collective movements.
Featuring music by Lena Horne, this montage of film and photographic archives documents the struggle of African-Americans for racial equality in the United States.
This film pays tribute to the Vietnamese statesman Ho Chi Minh who died in 1969. It tells the story of his life, chronicling the memorable actions he carried out in his struggle against imperialism and colonialism.
This documentary provides a brief history of the Cuban revolutionary movement, covering among other things the importance of José Martí's political and ideological activities and the creation of the Cuban Revolutionary Party.
Santiago Álvarez
Santiago Álvarez Román is a Cuban filmmaker. Counter-propagandist of American imperialism (79 Printemps, 1969), defender of the civil rights movement (NOW, 1968), propagandist of the Castro regime (Mi hermano Fidel, 1977), he is an important figure in militant cinema and the founder of Cuban revolutionary cinema. Trained in the United States, he returned to Cuba in the 1940s, where he became a music documentary-maker for television. A fighter for the revolution, he co-founded the ICAIC (Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográficos). From 1960 to 1998, he directed some 70 films, including one of his best-known, 79 Printemps. Santiago Alvarez defines the functions of cinema as follows: "it informs, divulges, enlightens, deals with major human conflicts, and seeks to shape a new public: more critical, more complex, more informed, more demanding, more revolutionary." Dictated by historical urgency and driven by political enthusiasm, the forms of visual documentation and argumentation he invented accompanied national liberation struggles around the world: Cuba, of course, but also Vietnam, Laos, Peru, Puerto Rico, Chile, the American civil rights movement...
