Havana (Cuba), 1928 – 1996

By Afrânio Mendes Catani

One of the most important Cuban directors, Titón, as he was known, began by experimenting with Super 8 and other film formats. He made the short films La Caperucita Roja (1946), Un Fakir (1947), and El Sueño de Juan Bassain (1953). He co-directed the medium-length film El Mégano (1954) with Julio García Espinosa. He directed another medium-length documentary on his own in Mexico, Contigo en la distancia (1991). He made new short films such as La Toma de La Habana por los Ingleses (1957), Esta Tierra es Nuestra (1959), Asemblea General (1960), Muerte al Invasor (1961), La Habana 1762 (1962), and El Arte del Tabaco (1974).

He moved on to directing feature films with Historias de la Revolución (1960), based on real events that depict the political struggles in Cuba during the 1950s, leading to the overthrow of the dictator Fulgencio Batista, through the episodes El Herido, Rebeldes, and La Batalla de Santa Clara. His following films were literary adaptations. The first, Las Doce Sillas (1962), was based on the work of Russian writers Ilya Ilf and Eugene Petrov, adapted by several filmmakers in different countries. Cumbite (1964) was based on the novel Los Gobernadores del Rocío by Haitian poet Jacques Roumain. He directed the black comedy La Muerte de un Burócrata (1966).

Memorias del Subdesarrollo (1968), one of the greatest films in Latin American history, was based on the novel of the same name by Cuban writer Edmundo Desnoes. Una Pelea Cubana Contra los Demonios (1971) is a historical drama set in the Cuban countryside in the 17th century. He continued with historical themes in La Última Cena (1976), again set in rural Cuba, this time in the 18th century. The drama Los Sobrevivientes (1978) portrayed the crisis of a bourgeois family after the victory of the Cuban Revolution, in a work influenced by The Exterminating Angel, a Mexican film by Luis Buñuel.

His first collaboration with Juan Carlos Tabío was Hasta Cierto Punto (1984), which focused on the challenges of creating a film set among port workers, involving discussions on machismo. His final works were co-productions with Spain, starting with Cartas del Parque (1988), based on a work by Gabriel García Márquez. With Juan Carlos Tabío as co-director, he made the drama Fresa y Chocolate (1993), co-produced with Mexico, which achieved great acclaim. He ended his career, with Tabío’s help, by directing the comedy Guantanamera (1995).