Santiago álvarez
About
Biography
Biography
As a young man, Santiago Alvarez studied in the USA and worked there at menial jobs. After his return to Cuba in the mid-1940s, he worked as a music archivist in a TV station and participated in the activities of the Cuban communist party and "Nuestro Tiempo," a political-cultural society.
With no formal training as a filmmaker, Alvarez made his first documentaries at the age of 40, in the wake of the Revolution. He was a founding member of ICAIC, the Cuban film institute established in 1959.
Though he has directed one fiction feature and headed ICAIC's Latin American Newsreel division, Alvarez's reputation is as a brilliant and innovative documentary filmmaker. His highly partisan political themes, such as anti-imperialism and support for Fidel Castro and the Revolution, are expressed in an eclectic style that draws on creative improvisation. In his famous anti-imperialist satire, "LBJ" (1968), and other documentary shorts produced in the 1960s, the filmmaker employed a "nervous montage" approach that stressed a skillful use of sound and creative editing techniques to tie together a fast-paced collage of disparate "found" materials such as cartoons, still photos, and clips from Hollywood movies.
Among the best known of Alvarez's documentary features are "79 primaveras" (1969), a poetic tribute to Ho Chi Minh; and "De America soy hijo...y a ella me debo" (1972) and "Y el cielo fue tomado por asalto" (1973), which both chronicle Castro's international tours.
Filmography
Director (Feature Film)
Writer (Feature Film)
Director (Short)
Life Events
1933
Radio broadcaster
1934
Left high school (date approximate)
1942
Returned to Cuba after speending several years studying in the USA; joined Communist party (date approximate)
1959
Co-founded (with Tomas Gutierrez Alea) and made newsreel department head of the Instituto Cubano del Arte y Industria Cinematograficos (ICAIC)
1961
Co-directed first documentary, "Escambray; Muerte al invasor"
