Running with the Revolution, documentary with the trajectory of Cuban runner Alberto Juantorena

December 8, 2020

The life of Cuban Olympic champion Alberto Juantorena comes to the big screen with the screening of the documentary Running for the Revolution, as part of the official selection of the 42nd International Festival of New Latin American Cinema.

The feature film, directed by British filmmaker Mark Craig, recreates passages from the career of one of the most emblematic athletes of the largest of the Antilles and the world, the only winner of the 400 and 800 meters in a competition under the five rings.

With production by Sports Channel, the material, which was filmed over the last five years, features testimony from people close to the double Olympic champion from Montreal 1976, both rivals on the track and teammates, family members and friends.

The cinema 23 and 12 of this capital hosts the premiere of the work, which had the collaboration of Cuban documentarian and photographer Roberto Chile, and athletes such as American Frederick Newhouse, runner-up in the oval race at the Canadian event.

Notable in the film is the presence of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, a subject that also served as the thread running through the story, because he 'made Cuba what it is today, and created the conditions that produced Juantorena. That's why I decided to call the film Running for the Revolution, Craig noted.

In statements to the digital media Cuba Sí, he said that the documentary constituted a journey into the unknown, which began seven years ago at a training camp in Spain, materialized in 2015 in Havana and encompassed four other filming trips and interviews in the largest of the Antilles.

The first shoots coincided with the presence of John Kerry on the island with the reopening of the United States Embassy after 54 years, a historic occasion; which gave the film context.

If you are a foreign filmmaker and you are going to tell the story of a man like him, you also have to understand the country that created him and for that it is necessary to understand Cuba and its relationship with the United States, because that is an aspect that permeates everything, past and present, the filmmaker pointed out.

Sport, personal experiences and historical subtext are combined in the audiovisual that approaches the Antillean, who currently directs the Cuban Athletics Federation and chairs the Paralympic Committee on the island.

Juantorena, 70 years old, has among his achievements the university world title in Moscow 1973, two golds in the universal cup of Düsseldorf 1977 and surpassed on a couple of occasions the world record for the 800 meters.