Ruta ADN Cuba, new documentary series by Alejandro Gil

July 26, 2025

Who are we and how did we get here? What can we learn about our past through genetics? These are the questions that filmmaker Alejandro Gil set out to answer with his new documentary series Ruta ADN Cuba: a journey to the roots of the cultural and racial identity of the Cuban people; whose premiere took place this Thursday at the Charles Chaplin cinema in the capital.

Renowned figures star in each of the six episodes —Silvio Rodríguez, Mireya Luis, Osvaldo Doimeadiós, Zuleica Romay, Roberto Diago, and Nelson Aboy— which, sponsored by the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry, aim to show the results of research conducted by Dr. Beatriz Marcheco Teruel, director of the National Center for Medical Genetics.

It all stems from a study —dating back more than a decade— on DNA in Cuba, conducted by the also president of the Cuban Society of Human Genetics, whose results revealed surprising data about the genealogy of each of these personalities.

Doimeadiós, for example, explained that an important Amerindian component was discovered in his maternal family, when commenting on his experiences in the documentary series.

Regarding Dr. Marcheco's performance in the production, Gil commented that she turned out to be "colloquial and very communicative," something unprecedented in this type of cinematographic projects, since it turned out that she conducted the interviews, facing the rigors inherent to journalistic work.

Likewise, in the words of the filmmakers, the revelations allowed us to understand "the complex diversity of ethnic groups and cultures that make up Cuban nationality".