| Islands / I Lands, NOW—Vista de Cuba |
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Sara Gómez
Sara Gómez
Born in Havana in 1943, Sara Gómez studied piano at the Havana Conservatory of Music. After working as a journalist, she became an assistant director at the ICAIC. In 1963, she worked as assistant director on and also appeared in Agnès Varda’s Hi There, Cubans. With her debut film, I Will Go to Santiago (1964), she became the first female film director in Cuba. Still in her 20s, she made a series of documentaries that were rooted in her African-Cuban background and that challenged male supremacy, racism, and economic marginalization within Cuba. Gómez also worked as assistant director on fiction films, including Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s Cumbite (1964). One Way or Another (1974), which used both documentary and fictional elements to depict a story of love across class lines, was to be her first feature-length film, but she died of acute asthma during post-production, at age 31. Alea helped to finish the film, which was released in 1978 and remains one of the monumental works of Cuban cinema. |
For all the following films by Gómez, production company and source: ICAIC
Chronicle of My Family
Guanabacoa: Crónica de mi familia- CUBA / 1966 / Spanish / B&W / Video (Original: 35mm) / 13 min
Director, Script: Sara Gómez
Photography: José Tabío, Luis Marzoa
Editing: Justo Vega
Producers: Eduardo Valdés Rivero, Jesús Pascau
An intuitive collage of images at first sight concerns the director’s family, but her family is the whole country, with its heritage of backwardness and, in particular, the racial issue, which the filmmaker, a black woman and the first female film director in Cuba, perceives against the backdrop of the conviction that the revolution will stamp out racism by dint of its egalitarian nature.
And . . . We’ve Got Taste
Y. . . tenemos sabor- CUBA / 1967 / Spanish / B&W / Video (Original: 35mm) / 30 min
Director, Script: Sara Gómez
Photography: Mario García Joya, José López
Editing: Justo Vega
Producer: Jesús Pascau
Conga, bongo, claves, güiro, timbales, maracas . . . Some of the basic Cuban musical instruments are introduced and demonstrated by the legendary rumba master Alberto Zayas (1908–1983). In addition to Zayas’s insightful descriptions of the instruments’ materials, sounds, African origins, and Cuban adaptations, on-the-street and in-studio performances by leading artists give this documentary a lot of flavor!
An Island for Miguel
Una isla para Miguel- CUBA / 1967 / Spanish / B&W / Video (Original: 35mm) / 22 min
Director: Sara Gómez
Photography: Luis García
Editing: Caíta Villalón
Music: Chucho Valdés
Producer: Jesús Pascau
The first part of the “Isle of Youth” trilogy shows the process of the reeducation of adolescents who are sent as juvenile delinquents to Pinos Island (later renamed the Isle of Youth). Together with the second and third parts, On the Other Island and Treasure Island, this film represents the documentary production of Sara Gómez.
On the Other Island
En la otra isla- CUBA / 1968 / Spanish / B&W / Video (Original: 35mm) / 41 min
Director, Script: Sara Gómez
Photography: Luis García
Editing: Caíta Villalón
Producer: Jesús Pascau
Pinos Island (later renamed the Isle of Youth) is an island where young “counterrevolutionaries” were indoctrinated after the revolution. The film-cum-survey features a seminarian seeking traces of God, the daughter of an émigré, and other young alleged enemies of the new regime.
Treasure Island
Isla del Tesoro- CUBA / 1969 / Spanish / B&W / Video (Original: 35mm) / 10 min
Director, Script: Sara Gómez
Photography: Luis García
Editing: Caíta Villalón
Music: Armando Guerra
Producer: Jesús Pascau
Traces the history of the Isle of Youth, formerly called Pinos Island or Treasure Island, from the discovery of the island by Columbus to 1969. The relationship between the old and the new world, humankind and history, and the meaning of human acts in a revolutionary era are considered in a brief story of Cuba. The aggressiveness of the film comes not only from the experimental use of sound but from an anti-Americanism born of a time in which Cuban film directors took an active part in politics.
One Way or Another
De cierta manera- CUBA / 1974 / Spanish / B&W / Video (Original: 35mm) / 82 min
Director: Sara Gómez
Photography: Luis García Mesa
Editing: Iván Arocha
Music: Sergio Vitier
Cast: Mario Balmaseda, Yolanda Cuéllar
Thanks to: Tokyo International Women's Film Festival
The last film by Gómez combines documentary elements with fiction in a radical fashion, demonstrating, through the story of a teacher who fully identifies with the revolution and a macho worker who is forced to confront the woman’s desire for emancipation, the idea that racism, sexism, and class prejudice must be defeated if the revolution is to succeed. Tomás Gutiérrez Alea helped complete the film.