Lena Horne’s famous song “Now!”, which was banned in the U.S. in the 1960s, was an angry call for struggle against racism. This film uses Horne’s song as the vehicle for a montage of film and photographic images from the U.S. civil rights movement. These images of racial struggle and oppression in the United States convey the heroism and pathos of the black protagonists of the Civil Rights movement, and the brutality of white police and Klansmen and the system they represent. Santiago Alvarez responds to the song’s escalating rhythm by moving between images to evoke the violence with which American society was being torn apart by white supremacy, and the intensity of the African-American struggle to right these injustices.
Tag: CUBA
Cinema arrives “for the first time” in the mountains… This Cuban documentary short film gathers the experience of a rural community in the mountains of the east of the island, where the cinema arrives for the first time, thanks to the mobile cinemas created for this purpose by the Revolution. The spectator receives the different emotions that an audience of men, women and children from the countryside provokes when they see the first film of their lives: “Modern Times”, by Charles Chaplin.
A desperate group of people wait at a rundown Cuban transit station for the next bus to arrive. The problem is, it never shows up. While a number of busses pass by the station, and others that are either full or at the end of the line stop by, it soon becomes obvious that the bus everyone was waiting for has left them high and dry. While one of the would-be passengers, Emilio, uses his downtime to win the affections of the beautiful Jacqueline, most of the rest decide that if they’re stuck without anywhere to go, they might as well make the station a better place to wait, and they begin forming a plan to turn the decrepit bus terminal into a showplace that people would look forward to visiting.
Don Pedro, a widowed poet, makes his living penning love letters for those who are too hesitant or tongue-tied to express their heart’s devotion. However, trouble arises when he is hired to scribe sweet nothings to the beautiful Maria, the lady love of a besotted but blundering hot air balloonist named Juan. Before long, the writer falls for the deceived Maria, which results in a troubling love triangle.
The 50-minute “Madagascar” has the resonance and eloquence of the best poetry, as it deftly turns an adolescent’s search for identity into a metaphor for post-revolutionary Cuba. Laura is a professor at a shabby, stultifying college. Her daughter, Laurita, stops going to school, wishes to move to Madagascar and quickly races through several phases.
The film is related from the point of view of Alsino, an impoverished Nicaraguan lad. While his country and its rotting buildings crumble all around him, the idealistic Alsino imagines himself to be a condor, flying far above his deprivations. It is during one of his hallucinations that Alsino jumps from a tree; the fall cripples him, turning him into a hunchback. He will only straighten out to his full proud height upon joining a guerilla band, fighting the corrupt government armies. Significantly, Alsino & the Condor was the first production to be filmed in Nicaragua after the Sandinista revolution and the overthrow of Somoza.
Satire about life in Cuba. The members of a funeral procession and some truckdrivers who have to take the same route begin to talk about god and the world ending up in discovering that life for both groups has many similarities as well as a lot of differences depending on the point of view.
During the socialist government of Marmaduke Grove in 1932, a group of villagers decide to take some land in the area of Palmilla. Almost like a mythical journey, problems arise when seated and in a position to bring the socialist ideal in the population. Everything becomes more complicated with rumors that the reactionary forces have overthrown the socialist government. A movie that because of the coup was not released in Chile and was only terminated by Littin in exile in Mexico.