Fernando Pérez Valdés is a Cuban documentary filmmaker who graduated from the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC), where he started as an assistant in 1962. He worked as a film critic in various publications and taught at the School of Cinema in San Antonio de los Baños. Between 1975 and 1985, he made several short films, and from 1978 to 1982, he contributed to the ICAIC newsreels. He directed two short films with Jesús Díaz: Puerto Rico (1975) and Crónica de la victoria (1975). After that, he directed solo films such as Cascos blancos (1975), Cabinda (1977), La sexta parte del mundo (1977), Siembro viento de mi ciudad (1978), Sábado rojo (1978), Monimbo es Nicaragua (1979), 4000 niños (1980), Las armas invisibles (1981), Mineros (1981), Camilo (1982), and Omara (1983). He co-directed La isla del tesoro azul (1985) with Roger Montanés.

He made his feature film debut with the drama Clandestinos (1987), followed by other dramas such as Hello Hemingway (1990) and La vida es Silbar (1997). He won the San Sebastián Film Festival award for his only fictional medium-length film, Madagascar (1994). In 2003, he directed the documentary Suite Habana. In 2007, he received Cuba’s National Film Award. He went on to direct feature films such as Madrigal (2007), José Martí: el ojo del canario (2010), and La pared de las palabras (2014). El ojo del canario received the Colón de Plata and Best Art Direction awards at the Ibero-American Film Festival in Huelva (Spain) and the Coral Award for Direction at the International New Latin American Cinema Festival in Havana (Cuba).