# Cuban Filmmaker León Ichaso Dies in Los Angeles

**Date:** 05/23/2023

Well-known Cuban filmmaker León Ichaso died of a massive heart attack early Sunday morning in Los Angeles, California. He was 74 years old.

Born in Havana on August 3, 1948, Ichaso came to the United States in the early 1960s. As a director, his first film in exile was the Spanish-language feature El Súper (1979), based on an Off-Broadway theatrical work, a true classic of cinema made outside the island about the life and problems of a Cuban family in New York.

He directed Crossover Dreams (1985), Azúcar amarga (1996), and Piñero (2001), feature films that address the problems of a Latin American living in the United States, bilingual and eager to succeed, and of a Cuban who has not forgotten his island and has felt the need to project himself before politics, and who can even understand the desperation of marginality and bohemian life…

He worked on several television projects, some adaptations of theatrical works. Zooman (1995) was one of them about a family that faces the murder of a child. Execution of Justice (1999) also originated from a theatrical work about the murders of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.

He directed for television Ali: An American Hero (2000) and Hendrix (2000). He is also remembered for the biography of Puerto Rican salsa singer Héctor Lavoe, El Cantante, filmed in 2006 and starring Jennifer López and Marc Anthony.

His last film, Paraíso, was filmed in Miami in 2008 and premiered at that city's International Festival in March 2009.