Session 6: Cultural

For an Impossible Cinema. Documentary and Avant-garde in Cuba (1959-1972) - Session 6: Cultural (113')

Por primera vez is a declaration of love for cinema. It shows the work of a mobile cinema which, mimicking the Teaching Missions of 1930s in Spain, brings movies to a remote village for the first time. In Nuestra Olimpiada en La Habana, the Olympiad referred to in the title is an international chess tournament. José Massip presents Fidel Castro as just another chess player, a figure who is both familiar and a stranger at the same time. The ICAIC was to devote a growing number of documentaries to an exploration of Cuban multi-cultural identity.

Acerca de un Personaje que unos Llaman San Lázaro y Otros Llaman Babalú might be classed as an investigative documentary, with an anthropological investigation on the feast day of a saint who symbolises the syncretism of Cuban religious beliefs. En la Otra Isla is one of Sara Gómez's most outstanding films. It is a scattered ensemble of individual portraits of the inhabitants of Isla de Pinos, in which they discuss their stories and their thoughts, addressing the issue of racism, which was still a taboo for many film-makers of the time. Hablando del Punto Cubano, by Octavio Cortázar, is a fascinating example of Cuban documentary film’s inclination for music.