Alfredo Guevara

Cuban filmmaker and intellectual.

Alfredo Guevara was a prominent Cuban intellectual who developed very important work in Cuban cinema starting in 1959, following the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. He was founder of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC), which he directed, in two stages, for three decades, and of the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema. He was Emeritus Professor of the Superior Institute of Art, which granted him the title of Doctor Honoris Causa in Art.

He was linked with UNESCO collaborating on cultural policy matters from 1968 between 1983 and 1992 he was Cuba's ambassador to that organization representing Cuba between 1987 and 1991 on the Executive Council, of which he became a member.

In 1983 he received the Federico Fellini Gold Medal which was presented to him by the UNESCO Director-General Federico Mayor Zaragoza and it was the first one awarded to a filmmaker. The President of France, François Mitterrand, granted him the Order of the Legion of Honor of the French Republic, in the rank of Commander.

In Cuba he received the Félix Varela Order of the First Degree, the highest recognition of Cuban culture and in 2008 the Prize of Latinidad, for his contribution to Cuban culture and for his efforts in favor of the development and dissemination of Latin American and Caribbean cinema. In March 2009 he was granted the José Martí Order, the highest distinction of the Cuban State, by the hands of President Raúl Castro.

Alfredo Guevara maintained his political activism and commitment throughout his life, he was a defender of freedom and did not hesitate to make the criticisms he considered necessary, both in public and in private, to the measures and decisions taken by the Cuban government positioning himself always in favor of openness and reforms.

Alfredo Guevara was born in La Habana. After his primary and secondary education he studied Philosophy and Letters at the University of La Habana where he earned his doctorate. There he met Fidel Castro coinciding in the organization of various political activities. He would maintain this friendship until his death.

At the University of La Habana there was great political activity against the government of Grau San Martín. Many students who participated in these protest acts took the step into political activity. Alfredo Guevara joined the ranks of Communist Youth. In this university political activity he coincided with Fidel Castro with whom he began a friendship that grew stronger in the heat of revolutionary struggle. In 1948 both coincided in the protests that followed the assassination of Colombian politician Jorge Eliecer Gaitán events known as the Bogotazo.

In the 1950s he studied Advanced Theater Direction and was co-founder of the Teatro Estudio Group and the Cultural Society Nuestro Tiempo which brought together the vanguard of Cuban intellectuals during the 1950s of the twentieth century. In 1955 he participates along with Julio García Espinosa in the production of the documentary "El mégano" in which they denounced living conditions in Batista's Cuba.

In the 1950s of the last century, he studied Advanced Theater Direction and was one of the founders of the Teatro Estudio Group and the Cultural Society Nuestro Tiempo. In 1955 he participated, together with filmmaker Julio García Espinosa and other artists in El Mégano, a documentary film considered as a precursor to New Cuban Cinema. He collaborated as production assistant to Manuel Barbachano and in the realization of the weekly shorts Cine Verdad. In 1958 he worked as assistant director to Luis Buñuel in Nazarín.

Guevara went into exile in Mexico during the last years of Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship. He returned to Cuba after the triumph of the Revolution where he was part of the governing nucleus that forged the most radical revolutionary laws, such as the agrarian reform law, in the first moments of the revolution.

Before the end of the first year of the triumph of the Revolution, the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) was created. Guevara was its driving force and its first president. He remained at the head of ICAIC until 1983. During that period films such as Death of a Bureaucrat, Memories of Underdevelopment or The Last Supper directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Aléa or Lucía by Humberto Solás were produced. ICAIC was always a space for creation where there were margins for criticism and creative freedom.

In 1969 the Grupo de Experimentación Sonora was created sponsored by ICAIC. This group was the embryo of the Cuban New Trova Movement of which, among other notable singer-songwriters, Silvio Rodríguez and Pablo Milanés were part.

In 1975, when the Ministry of Culture was created, he was appointed Vice Minister. As head of ICAIC he created the Cinemateca of Cuba, the ICAIC Latinoamericano Newsreel, the magazine Cine Cubano and the ICAIC Grupo de experimentación Sonora. He also promoted the Cuban plastic arts movement that changed the design of the film poster.

In 1983 he left the direction of ICAIC and moved to Paris as Cuba's ambassador to UNESCO, with whom he had already been collaborating since 1968 as a specialist in cultural policies, returning in the late 1990s again to ICAIC.

He founded the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema with the objective of promoting the unity of Latin American filmmakers. He was president of this festival until his death.

On April 19, 2013 he died in La Habana from a heart attack at the age of 87.

Decorations
Order of the Legion of Honor, in the rank of Commander, granted by the President of the French Republic, François Mitterrand.
Federico Fellini Gold Medal, awarded for the first time to a filmmaker.
Title of Doctor Honoris Causa in Art granted by the Superior Institute of Art of Cuba.
Félix Varela Order of the First Degree, granted by the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba, the highest distinction of Cuban culture.
José Martí Order, the highest distinction of the Cuban State, by the hands of President Raúl Castro.
National Cinema Prize.
Distinction from the cultural magazine "La Jiribilla" (Cuba), "for the depth of his thought and his creative presence in the cultural endeavors of the Nation".