Luis Alejandro Yero Monteagudo

Bachelor of Journalism from the University of La Habana, graduate in Documentary Direction from the International School of Film and Television of Cuba (EICTV).

Cuban filmmaker graduated in Documentary Direction from the International School of Film and Television (EICTV) of Cuba, and with a Bachelor's degree in Journalism from the University of La Habana.

His short films have been exhibited in more than 25 countries, in the programming of numerous festivals such as Mar del Plata, IDFA, Sheffield, Jihlava, FICUNAM, Jeonju, Thessaloniki, Biarritz, Documenta Madrid, Olhar de Cinema, and in cultural centers such as the Lincoln Center in New York and the Instituto Cervantes in Tokio, Vienna and Rio de Janeiro.

For EL CEMENTERIO SE ALUMBRA he received recognition as Best Short Film at Mar del Plata, FICUNAM and Gibara. His graduation thesis LOS VIEJOS HERALDOS had its world premiere at IDFA, won the Coral for Best Documentary Short Film at the International Film Festival of La Habana, and film critics recognized it as the best Cuban documentary exhibited in national theaters during 2018.

He currently lives between Cuba and Ciudad de México, while developing his feature film debut EL NUEVO EDÉN, a project selected for the IDFA Academy 2018.

AWARDS

EL CEMENTERIO SE ALUMBRA
Mar del Plata / 2018 / Best Latin American Short Film ︎
FICUNAM / 2019 / Best Short Film ︎
FIC Gibara / 2019 / Best Documentary Short Film ︎


LOS VIEJOS HERALDOS
International Festival of New Latin American Cinema / 2018 /
Best Documentary Short Film ︎
Cuban Association of Film Press / 2018 /
Best Cuban Documentary ︎
Young Showcase / 2019 / Best Documentary (Ex Aequo) ︎
Lucania Film Festival / 2019 / Special Mention of the Jury &
Special Mention of the Popular Jury ︎

FILMOGRAPHY AS DIRECTOR

2018 / Los viejos heraldos / 23 min ︎ 2018 / El cementerio se alumbra / 14 min ︎ 2018 / Apuntes en la orilla / 14 min ︎
2017 / Años de entrega / 13 min ︎
2014 / Natalia Nikolaevna / 30 min ︎

Luis Alejandro was 14 years old, lived in Sancti Spíritus and his father took him to La Habana to get to know the city, and while there, go to the Film Festival. Since then, he has always been in La Habana at each festival.

The cinephile teenager, the apprentice journalist who never wanted to be a journalist, the happy one — and finally — the film student. Now he attends the festival as a film director.

Yero studied Journalism, perhaps out of commitment to the family, but long before finishing his degree at the Faculty of Communication in the country's capital, he knew that his calling was in the artistic creation of the world of sounds, colors, silence… the big screen.

And he did not waste the opportunity, for in the 40th edition of the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema — although it is not his first time in high-level competitions — after his graduation a few months earlier from the International School of Film and Television in San Antonio de los Baños. Up until this great event that captures the attention of an entire continent and much more beyond, this young man committed to the presentation of Los viejos heraldos, in the Documentary category, and El cementerio se alumbra, in the Avant-Garde section.

Still with the airs of the academy, Luis Alejandro has dared with a firm cinematic touch to reveal in El cementerio… that life and death go hand in hand. A disturbing sensation, as the jury of the International Competition of the 33rd International Film Festival of Mar del Plata called it, where he won the award for best Latin American short film.

He filmed it while studying at the film school in San Antonio de los Baños. It is the exploration of a small town focusing during filming on the gestures of the inhabitants as if it were the last time they were going to occur. Each movement seems as if it were the last, a kind of subsistence, he has said about his story.

A daring challenge in 14 minutes of narrative for someone beginning on a path full of subjectivities and interpretations of a demanding audience and specialized critics.

With a screenplay co-written by Yero Monteagudo along with Chilean Natalia Medina, a graduate in Fine Arts, who also handled the photography of the material, El cementerio se alumbra was successfully exhibited at the XV International Documentary Film Festival Docuenmenta Madrid and at Olhar de Cinema, Curitiba International Film Festival, in Brazil.

While in Los viejos heraldos the camera creates, thanks to black and white photography, two universes: the everyday life of Tata and Esperanza, two elderly people living in the countryside, and the broadcast on television of the sessions of the National Assembly of People's Power, when Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez was elected President of the Councils of State and Ministers.

"They coexist in a kind of oasis and from a very personal perspective they witness the election of Cuba's new President, a fact that marks us for being the beginning and the end of an era for all of us," the author considers.

The 23 minutes of this, his second documentary, conceived, made and produced still as a student, premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam, Holland, the most important event of its kind in the world, where he received recognition from those who know how to appreciate the value of Cuban aesthetics.