Santiago Álvarez
Born: 1919-03-18 in Havana, Cuba
Died: 1998-05-20
Known For: Directing
Biography
He studied in the United States but in the mid-1940s returned to Cuba, where he worked as a music archivist in a television station and participated in Communist Party activities.[1] After the Cuban Revolution he became a founding member of the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC) and directed its weekly Latin American Newsreel.[2] One of his most famous works, the short Now (1964) about racial discrimination in the US, mixed news photographs and musical clips featuring singer/actress Lena Horne. Other well-known works included the anti-imperialist satire LBJ (1968) and 79 Springs (1969), a poetic tribute to Ho Chi Minh. In 1968, he collaborated with Octavio Getino and Fernando E. Solanas (members of Grupo Cine Liberación) on the four-hour documentary Hora de los hornos, about foreign imperialism in South America. Among the other subjects he explored in his films were the musical and cultural scene in Latin America and the dictatorships which gripped the region. The second chapter of French director Jean-Luc Godard's Histoire(s) du cinéma is dedicated to Álvarez, amongst others.[3] He died of Parkinson's disease in Havana on May 20, 1998 and was buried there in the Colon Cemetery.
Filmography
2019
- Éter ... (Sound)
2013
- El camino de Santiago: Periodismo, cine y revolución as Santiago Alvarez
2010
- Memória Cubana as Self (archive footage)
2002
- Rocha Que Voa as Self (voice)
1999
1989
- Historia de una Plaza ... (Director)
1987
- Brascuba ... (Director)
1984
- Coarse Salt as Horacio
1983
- Biografía de un carnaval ... (Director)
1980
- The Necessary War ... (Director)
1977
- El octubre de todos ... (Writer)
- My Brother, Fidel ... (Director)
1976
- Maputo meridiano novo ... (Director)
- Luanda ya no es de San Pablo ... (Writer)
- To Die for Your Country Is to Live Forever ... (Director)
1975
- The First Delegate ... (Director)
- April in Vietnam in the Year of the Cat ... (Director)
1974
- El milagro de la tierra morena ... (Director)
- The Four Bridges ... (Director)
- [Opening speech for the retrospective “Cuban Documentary Film”] [excerpt] ... (Director)
1973
- La hora de los cerdos ... (Director)
- The New Tango ... (Writer)
- And Heaven Was Taken by Storm ... (Director)
- The Tiger Leaps and Kills, But It Will Die... It Will Die... ... (Director)
1972
- I Am a Son of America ... (Director)
1971
- ¿Cómo, por qué y para qué se asesina un general? ... (Director)
- The Stampede ... (Director)
1970
- The Servant's Dream ... (Director)
- Piedra sobre piedra ... (Director)
1969
- 79 Springs ... (Director)
- Hanoi, Tuesday 13th ... (Director)
- Take-Off at 18:00 Hours ... (Writer)
- Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano No. 466: Celebration of the VI Amateur World Series in the Dominican Republic. Cuba-USA Final. ... (Director)
1968
- LBJ ... (Director)
- Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano, No. 422 ... (Director)
1967
- The Forgotten War ... (Director)
- Hasta la Victoria Siempre ... (Director)
1966
- Año 7 (Noticiero No. 290) ... (Director)
- Cerro Pelado ... (Director)
- Abril de Girón ... (Director)
1965
- Now! ... (Director)
- Solidaridad Cuba y Vietnam ... (Writer)
1964
- Cyclone ... (Director)
1962
- Muerte al invasor ... (Editor)
- Crisis en el Caribe ... (Writer)
1960
- Carnival ... (Production Manager)
- Noticiero ICAIC Latinoamericano ... (Director)
1959
- El Tomate ... (Producer)