Tomás Gutiérrez Alea

Guantanamera (1995)

During the 'Special Period', the members of a funeral procession cross paths with truckdrivers who have to take the same route, and begin to talk about God and the world. They discover that life for both groups has many similarities, as well as a lot of di ...

Strawberry and Chocolate (1993)

In 1979 Cuba, flamboyant gay artist Diego attempts to seduce straitlaced David, an idealistic young communist, and fails dismally. But David conspires to be "friends" with Diego so he can monitor the artist's subversive life for the state. As Diego and Da ...

Con el amor no se juega (1991)

Susana, a beautiful young girl living in 1990, is happily looking forward to her forthcoming marriage - and has bought an antique mirror to grace her future home. Three weeks before the wedding, the mirror is delivered to her Grandmother's home and taken t ...

Contigo en la distancia (1991)

Letters from the Park (1989)

Matanzas, Cuba, 1913. Two young people who are in love communicate through letters written by penman. When the young man leaves town, to become a pilot, the girl discovers she is really in love with the one who wrote the letters. ...

Up to a Certain Point (1983)

A theater director and script-writer falls for a female worker from the Havana docks, but his machismo, social and working conflicts, and the Cuban woman's condition interfere with their relationship. ...

The Survivors (1979)

A bourgeois Cuban family of aristocratic origin locks itself into its mansion when the Cuban Revolution comes to power, waiting for the new regime to be overthrown. As time passes, they regress to older and older systems of political order, from capitalism ...

One Way or Another (1977)

In Miraflores, Cuba, the growing romance between Mario, a factory worker, and Yolanda, a schoolteacher, throws into relief the differences in their perspectives and values in Revolutionary Cuba. ...

La sexta parte del mundo (1977)

The Last Supper (1976)

A pious plantation owner attempts to teach Christianity to 12 of his slaves by inviting them to participate in a reenactment of the Last Supper. ...

The Other Francisco (1975)

Based on the novel Francisco by Anselmo Suárez y Romero, "The Other Francisco" is a socio-economic analysis of slavery and class struggle through the retelling of the original novel. The film contrasts the romantic conceptions of plantation life found in ...

El camino de la mirra y el incienso (1975)

El arte del tabaco (1974)

A close-up examination of laborers creating Cuban cigars intercut with artistic advertising labels and postures for those cigars. Silent with musical accompaniment. ...

A Cuban Fight Against Demons (1972)

In 1672 Cuban revolutionaries launch an uprising against the Spanish who are occupying the country. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2017. ...

Memories of Underdevelopment (1968)

In the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs incident, Sergio chooses to stay behind in Cuba while his wife and family escape to neighboring Miami. Alone in a brave new world, Sergio observes the constant threat of foreign invasion while chasing young women all ove ...

Death of a Bureaucrat (1966)

A young man attempts to fight the system in an entertaining account of bureaucracy amok and the tyranny of red tape. Restored by the Academy Film Archive and the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industrias Cinematográficos in 2019. ...

Cumbite (1964)

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. ...

The Twelve Chairs (1962)

When her country is taken over by socialist revolutionaries, a wealthy woman can't bear to give up all of her wealth and possessions to the new government, so she hides all of her treasures in the 12 chairs of a dining-room set. After her death her nephew ...

Muerte al invasor (1962)

Produced by ICAIC in the wake of the Bay of Pigs invasion, "Muerte al invasor" chronicles the three days of fighting at Playa Girón, portraying the rapid mobilization of Cuban forces and civilians against a CIA-backed exile army. ...

Stories of the Revolution (1960)

A film about the Cuban Revolution told from three different perspectives. ...

General Assembly (1960)

In Asamblea general (1960), the documentary about Fidel's address of the First Declaration of Havana in the Plaza of the Revolution, Alea practises what becomes a sustaining Cuban contribution to documentary. Engaging with Free Cinema and cinema-vérité, ...

This Is Our Land (1959)

The unfair distribution of land in Cuba encourages the support of the peasants to the revolution. ...

El mégano (1955)

Documentary that portrays the life of a coal-mining town south of Havana, around 1955, prior to the triumph of the revolution. ...

Il sogno de Giovanni Bassain (1953)

A Daily Mix-up (1950)

A short film based on a story by Franz Kafka. Two men meet to resolve an issue, but are unable to do so due to a series of adverse circumstances. ...

La Caperucita Roja (1947)

El Faquir (1947)

Memória Cubana (2010)

Through the files of Cuban cinema news program Noticieros ICAIC Latinoamericanos, the documentary shows the most relevant events of the second half of the 20th century as seen by the documentary filmmakers of the island. During three decades and under the ...

Titón: From Havana to Guantanamera, 1928-1996 (2008)

A look at the life and work of Cuban filmmaker Tomas Gutierrez Alea. ...

I Am Cuba, the Siberian Mammoth (2005)

Contemporary film critics regard the epic film I Am Cuba as a modern masterpiece. The 1964 Cuban/Soviet coproduction marked a watershed moment of cultural collaboration between two nations. Yet the film never found a mass audience, languishing for decades ...

Rocha Que Voa (2002)

Documentary about the relationship between filmmaker Glauber Rocha and Cuba. ...

Claves, 4: Memories of Cuban cinema (1984)

Documentary in four parts on Latin American cinema. Fourth episode: in Cuba, the ICAIC, created in the aftermath of the Castro revolution, is at once a film school, a production company and a state cultural branch. Cuban filmmakers testify to the situation ...

Hello Cubans (1963)

A photo montage of Cubans filmed by Agnès Varda during her visit to Cuba in 1963, four years after Fidel Castro came to power. This black & white documentary explores their socialist culture and society while making use of 1500 pictures (out of 4000!) the ...