Actor Omar Alí makes his directing debut with "El camino" at Havana's Yara cinema

October 11, 2026

Cuban actor Omar Alí, best known for the TV series Tras la huella and the telenovela ¡Oh, La Habana!, premiered "El camino," his first feature film as a director, on Saturday, October 10, at the Yara cinema in Havana. The special free screening was part of Cuban Culture Day events and the 50th anniversary of the Ministry of Culture.

The film is built from seven fictional stories, each 10 to 12 minutes long, about young characters whose lives cross at different moments in Cuban history, from the present day back to the independence wars that began in 1868. "It is not a historical film," Alí told the EFE news agency, adding that it aims to show "a Cuba through time and, at the same time, the Cuba of always."

The screenplay was written by his daughter, Daniela Alí Pérez, and his wife, actress Iris Pérez, worked on the shoot as an actress and acting coach. Produced by the ICAIC film institute, independent company i4films and the Cubavisión channel, the film took about seven years to complete: the money ran out on the eleventh day of filming and the project sat idle for almost two years. When work resumed, "five of the eight leads were outside Cuba," Alí said, so parts of the script had to be reworked.

The cast includes Milton García, Andro Perugorría, Roberto Romero, Abel Molina, Eugenio Torroella, Daniela Leyva, Amalia Gaute and Juannalise Ricardo, among others. Alí, 63, has said he would like to screen the film in Madrid, where part of the original team now lives.