Living Between Hurricanes is the title of a new documentary which I begin shooting this month in Cuba with Jean Stubbs and Jon Curry-Machado of the Commodities of Empire research project at the Institute of Latin American Studies. Funded by … Continue reading
Happy Birthday Santiago Alvarez Born 18 March 1919, Havana Died 20 May 1998, Havana Santiago Alvarez was not speaking metaphorically when he said that the Revolution made him a filmmaker. Before the creation of Cuba’s revolutionary film institute in 1959 … Continue reading
A more interesting question to ask after his death is not what Fidel Castro was – a revolutionary hero? a tyrannical dictator? a beneficent dictator? – but who would now call themselves a Fidelista and what will become of Fidelismo? … Continue reading
No-one ever frightened the powers-that-be in Washington more than Fidel Castro. No-one ever challenged their hegemony more effectively, not just with his powerful rhetoric but above all in action, driving out a dictator and installing socialism ninety miles south of … Continue reading
Very sad to hear of the death in Havana of the pioneer of Cuban cinema, Julio García Espinosa, at the age of 89. One of the founding members of Cuba’s film institute, the ICAIC, of which he was President from … Continue reading
‘Interrupted Memory’ at Birkbeck Friday 9 January at 6pm One of the interviewees in Interrupted Memory (Memoria interrumpida) (Michael Chanan, 2013, 116mns) recalls being detained in the 1976 coup in Argentina. She was beaten and raped. She began, defensively, to … Continue reading
A short note on the Cuba Research Forum conference which has just taken place at Nottingham, which suggests that international research on Cuba is in good health. Under the as-ever cheerful helm of Tony Kapcia, we heard from speakers of various … Continue reading
The proper title of Havana’s annual film festival, founded in 1979, is the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema – Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano. The words mark the Festival’s identification with a movement that was born in the 1960s, in … Continue reading
The Cuban dissenting blogger Yoani Sanchez has written a somewhat cynical blog about Havana’s Film Festival, or to give its full title, the International Festival of the New Latin American Cinema, whose 35th edition closed on Sunday, in which she comments … Continue reading
Some reports on my activities at the Havana Film Festival, for readers of Spanish: Variedad temática desde la documentalística – a review of Memoria interrumpida. There are several reports on the Seminar, ¿Nuevo? ¿Cine? ¿Latinoamericano? The fullest is Hacia un nuevo concepto de Nuevo … Continue reading