The ICAIC, Cuba’s iconic film institute created after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, broke ground in film-making with its use of cinema as a medium for mass communication and political expression. Through the ICAIC, Cuban revolutionary cinema cultivated a dynamic relationship between the screen and its spectators. Santiago Álvarez, a prolific filmmaker at the ICAIC, has long been synonymous with this style of “urgent” Cuban cinema that helped to define a Latin American revolutionary aesthetic, both experimental and overtly political. Álvarez directed a number of classic Cuban films, and produced the well-known newsreel Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano during its thirty-year run, now designated a UNESCO “world heritage”.

Join us for an evening of Cuban film short screenings and a conversation with Lazara Herrera and Ismael Perdomo, two of Álvarez’s closest collaborator’s at the ICAIC. The series of shorts will cover a range of topics, including racism and racial politics in the U.S., as seen from revolutionary Cuba.

The speakers will also share information about the complex process of film restoration and preservation that the film reels are currently undergoing.

Speaker bios:

Lazara Herrera

Director of the Santiago Alvarez Office in the ICAIC (Cuban Institute for Arts and Cinematographic Industry) and President of the International Festival of Documentary Santiago Alvarez in Memoriam, celebrated since 1999 in Santiago de Cuba city.

Ismael Perdomo

Cuban film maker and Director. Member of the Santiago Alvarez Office and creator of the project www.Cuba24horas.com

~Sponsored by NYU CLACS, KJCC, NYU History and NYU SCA Africana Studies.~