Mario Rodríguez Alemán

Cuban journalist. Throughout his fruitful career, he obtained several distinctions for merit in culture and education. Film commentator and critic. He was the host and emblematic figure of the renowned television program Tanda del Domingo.

Founder of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba, Union of Journalists of Cuba, the Research Center of the Cuban Institute of Arts and Film Industry ICAIC and rector of the Institute of Higher Art. He was a professor at the University of Havana.

He was born in Sagua la Grande, province of Las Villas. He became an orphan at age 13. He began working to make a living, worked in a grocery warehouse, was an insurance salesman, watchmaker, printer, and poorly-paid teacher in private and public schools.

He completed his high school studies, and after finishing he pursued degrees in Civil Law, Social Sciences and Diplomatic Law, later abandoned due to the pressing needs of daily sustenance.

He continued his studies at the University of Havana and there had his first contact with theater upon joining the university theater.

He graduated as Doctor of Philosophy and Letters in 1952 and in journalism from the "Manuel Márquez Sterling" School. He obtained the degree of Doctor in Philological Sciences. By this time he already mastered French, English, Italian and even languages such as German and Russian. He was an excellent orator.

His first contacts with journalism were in the newspaper of the Villa del Undoso, "Mensaje," where he worked as both editor, photographer and typesetter. In a letter sent to the director of the newspaper Manino Aguilera Hernández, a fellow countryman and personal friend, he comments on his first steps in the profession and his love and nostalgia for Sagua la Grande:

"How could I forget, Manino, that you gave me a hand to begin my career in journalism and that thanks to two or three years of work published in your weekly Mensaje, and your efforts on my behalf, I was granted the title of journalist from the Márquez Sterling School in Havana. Regarding your interest in my visiting Sagua, I will tell you yes. I will go to Sagua as Federico García Lorca did, but not in a sewage truck, but traveling up the long river that divides the city in two. I will go once more, to return to what I loved most: the humble home of my father and my teacher, of my mother—who sowed purity in life, like those lilies in the courtyard of the native house, at Maceo number 17.

He represented Cuba at important international events. He won the Oratory Prize convened by the newspaper El Universal of Mexico in 1948 and others granted by the Union of Filmmakers, including those linked to his work as a professor and man of culture.

He was a tireless political fighter since his high school studies in Sagua la Grande (1940-1944). He was an active collaborator of the University Student Federation in the School of Philosophy and Letters at the University of Havana, an energetic fighter from the Coup d'État of March 10 in Cuba and an active member of the July 26 Movement where he became connected to Fidel Castro and the Moncadistas on the Isle of Pines.

He was in charge of publishing at the University in January 1954, on mimeograph, the text of History Will Absolve Me in a quantity of 5,000 copies. His work was active throughout those years through Revista Bohemia, in the Pro-Amnesty Committee, in the Strike of April 9 and through his contact with a group of representative figures of this period. He was arrested on more than four occasions by the Bureau of Repression of Communist Activities (BRAC), accused of being a communist. There he suffered interrogations and countless abuses.

Upon the triumph of the Revolution, he continued his work as a committed intellectual in the dissemination of the ideology of our country, through his journalistic work and in media such as television. He is also recognized as a brilliant educator. A man of impeccable professional ethics, with respect for differing opinions, an advocate of gentle and constructive suggestions. And as a journalism professional: a lucid intellectual, vehement in his judgments and polemicist.

He made several publications in the field of cinema and in his journalistic work. He published articles in magazines such as Nuestro Tiempo (Cuba), Señal (Guatemala), Humanismo (Mexico), Bohemia (Cuba) and others such as Cine Cubano, Prisma, Universidad de La Habana and Unión. As a film critic he published works from 1949 in the newspaper Mañana and subsequently, after the triumph of the Revolution, in Granma and Trabajadores.

In 1959 his face appeared for the first time on television to inaugurate the program Cinema on TV with the film "Potemkin." He also founded the television program Tanda del Domingo in 1981.

He died on July 11, 1996 in Havana.

He received the Frank País and Raúl Gómez García Medals, the Félix Elmuza Order as well as many other distinctions for merit in Cuban culture and education.

He was founder of the Cultural Society Nuestro Tiempo and of the National Council of Culture. He was founding member of the unions of Education and Culture, of institutions such as the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba and the Union of Journalists of Cuba, of the Research Center of the Cuban Institute of Arts and Film Industry ICAIC and rector of the Institute of Higher Art [ISA], and was also a professor at the University of Havana.