Manuel Herrera

Portrait of an Artist Forever Adolescent

Starting from the life of the filmmaker Julio García Espinosa, the documentary is projected towards a reflection on the emergence and development of Cuban revolutionary cinematography, its struggles, contradictions and confrontations with dogmatic thinking that at times seems to dominate the Cuban political-cultural spectrum, the always difficult, risky and necessary relationship between officials and artists, and the close and united defense of filmmakers around their film policy.

Bay of Pigs

On 15th April 1961 the anti-revolutionary forces bombed the airports of San Antonio de los Baños, Ciudad Libertad, and Santiago de Cuba in an attempt to eliminate the Cuban air force. This incident portended an imminent invasion. On the next day, while the victims of the bombing were being buried, Fidel Castro proclaimed the state of war. On the morning of 17th April mercenaries went ashore at Bay of Pigs, and proceeded to occupy two centrally situated places: Playa Larga and Playa Girón. Meanwhile, paratroopers landed north of this area in order to control the only access roads to these two beaches, which ran through the Zapata swamp. Thus, the occupiers created a centre of force in Bay of Pigs and appointed a provisional government. They intended to take over power by fighting a war of attrition, with the aid of the U.S.

Cumbite

A Haitian son returns from fifteen years in Cuba to find his home village afflicted with the double plague of drought and strife. A Cuban production from the director of Memories of Underdevelopment. In Spanish.