Reframing Cuba
The films of
Santiago Alvarez
In collaboration with ICAIC Cuban Institute of Motion Picture Arts and Industries
INTRASTEVERE CINEMA – Room 2, May 30, 3 p.m.
LBJ
Cuba / 1968 / 18”
Satire on U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, one of Alvarez’s favorite targets. It has three sections, corresponding to Johnson’s initials. L is for Martin Luther King, B is for Bobby Kennedy, and J is for John Kennedy. Alvarez believes Johnson was implicated in all three assassinations, portraying his presidency as the culmination of a history of social-political corruption.
Now
Cuba / 1965 / 5′
A short documentary from the 1960s about the struggle against racial discrimination in North America, which has as its musical theme the song Now sung by North American singer Lena Horne. The film is made from photographs and film material depicting scenes of violence by American police officers on black men and women, Nazi parades and Ku Klux Klan meetings, and black civil rights demonstrations.
79 Primaveras
Cuba / 1969 / 25′
In 1969 Alvarez was invited to Hanoi by the North Vietnamese government to film the funeral of Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese independence leader and founder of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. 79 Primaveras reconstructs the 79 years of Ho Chi Minh’s life, alternating images of the funeral ceremony with archival materials describing the paradigmatic stages of his political and revolutionary activities.
Santiago Alvarez
was a Cuban filmmaker. He wrote and directed numerous documentaries on Cuban and U.S. culture. His “frenetic editing” technique, which involved the use of Hollywood films, cartoons and photographs, is considered a precursor to the modern video clip.