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Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born in Birán, Holguin Province, Cuba, the fifth of nine children of Ángel María Bautista Castro y Argiz, a plantation owner originally from Galicia, Spain, who operated a plantation in Cuba's Oriente Province. His mother, Lina Ruz González, was a servant in his father's home who bore Fidel out of wedlock (they later were married several years after Angel's first wife died). Known as a rebellious, loud, and troublesome child, Fidel was sent to a Jesuit boarding school in Santiago de Cuba, where he was often teased by his wealthier classmates who called him a "peasant." He later attended Belen College before enrolling at the University of Havana, where he earned a law degree. After graduating from the university, Castro briefly practiced law, before he went on to marry Mirta Diaz-Balart, a wealthy philosophy student with family ties to Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. They had a son, Fidelito, but after 5 years, the couple divorce and went their separate ways. After several years in prison and exile (he lived in Mexico and New York City before starting the revolution) Castro led an attack on the Moncada barracks on July 26, 1953. The attack, which was a major attack on Batista's hold of Cuba, found Castro once again imprisoned before he was released. After his release he went to the Yucatan, where he organized a rebel force that landed in Cuba in 1958 and after many successful battles, Castro rode triumphantly into Havana on January 8, 1959.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Alexis Díaz de Villegas was born in 1966 in Cumanayagua, Cuba. He was an actor, known for Juan of the Dead (2011), Habana Blues (2005) and Between Two Hurricanes (2003). He died on 24 June 2022 in Havana, Cuba.- Director
- Writer
- Editor
Cuba's greatest and best-known director, Tomas Gutierrez Alea fell in love with cinema at an early age, began as a documentarian much influenced by Italian neorealism and came into his own as an artist during Fidel Castro's regime. Over the years he has evinced a fondness for both historical and contemporary fables, invariably politically pointed and satirical, their flights into absurdity showing the influence of Luis Buñuel. An ardent supporter of the revolution that rid the country of the despotic Fulgencio Batista and brought Castro to power, Alea has painted a more complex portrait of Cuba in his cinema than the rest of the world has generally been willing to conceive. The documentary impulse has remained, yet it is used to constantly scrutinize contemporary Cuba. Indeed, Alea has made some gutsy critiques of the socioeconomic and political realities of his land, as he ponders the persistence of a petty-bourgeois mentality in a society supposedly dedicated to the plight of the working poor.
Born to a fairly well-off family, Alea was sent to college in Havana to follow in his father's footsteps and become a lawyer. At about the same time he entered school, though, he acquired an 8mm camera and made two short films, El faquir (1947) and La caperucita roja (1947). Several years later he collaborated with fellow student (and future film great) Néstor Almendros on a short adaptation of a Franz Kafka story they named Una confusión cotidiana (1950). Upon graduation, Alea journeyed to Italy to study film directing for two years during the crest of neorealism at the famed Centro Sperimentale de Cinematografia. He returned to Cuba in 1953 and joined the radical "Nuestro Tiempo" cultural society, becoming active in the film section, working as a publicist and aligning himself with Castro's fight against the Batista regime. In 1955 Alea co-directed, with fellow society member 'Julio Garcia Espinosa', the 16mm short El mégano (1955), a semi-documentary about exploited workers, acted by nonprofessionals from the locales in which it was shot. The film was seized by Batista's secret police because of its political content.
Soon after the Cuban revolution in 1959, Alea co-founded (with Santiago Álvarez) the national revolutionary film institute ICAIC ("Instituto del Arte y Industria Cinematografica"). He promptly made a documentary, Esta tierra nuestra (1959), full of hope for the new government's plan to help the poor through agrarian reform, and has remained a pillar of the organization ever since. Alea's diverse creative personality has led him to experiment with a broad range of styles and themes. His first feature, Stories of the Revolution (1960), employs a neorealist style to present three dramatic sketches depicting the armed insurrection against Batista. Alea's relatively straightforward approach to film style, however, would change, altered not only through his appropriation of Hollywood and art cinema stylistics but also by his increasingly personal attempts at self-expression. A Cuban Fight Against Demons (1972), the film on which he first worked with regular cinematographer Mario García Joya, comes across as the prelude to a period Alea has described as full of personal and artistic instability as much as it does an aggressive allegorical portrait of church and state corruption. The director's later Cartas del parque (1988) is more of a twilight work, exploring the romantic period piece as a scribe meets a diverse cross-section of society via his talents at letter writing.
The finest of Alea's historical films, The Last Supper (1976), continued to highlight his versatility, drawing on Afro-Cuban musical motifs and the literary style of magic realism to recreate an 18th-century slave revolt. Alea has also made several satiric comedies that explore the legacy of bourgeois society in post-revolutionary Cuba. The madcap adventure The Twelve Chairs (1962), a tale also told by Russian filmmakers and by Mel Brooks, satirizes greed and bureaucracy as a lingering post-revolutionary bourgeois, his roguish manservant and a corrupt priest hunt for a chair concealing priceless diamonds. The Hollywoodian black comedy Death of a Bureaucrat (1966) cites not only Buñuel but also Mack Sennett and Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as it criticizes, at an early point in the Castro regime, the administrative muck of the political system (Alea reused the gallows humor of the bureaucracy connected with burying a corpse for his road picture Guantanamera (1995), which began to appear at festivals in 1995 and 1996). In Los sobrevivientes (1979) an aristocratic family devolves from civilization to savagery; using a metaphor found in many films from poor countries, the family resorts to cannibalism in trying to remain isolated from the Revolution. The stresses and strains of a revolutionary society were explored in several dramatic works set in contemporary Cuba, among them Memories of Underdevelopment (1968) and Hasta cierto punto (1983). "Memories", Alea's masterpiece and arguably the best-known Cuban film ever made, brilliantly blends documentary and drama to create an extremely witty yet sensitive portrait of a restless, oversexed, politically uncommitted intellectual as he meanders through the early days of the Revolution. The latter film is, in some ways, a continuation of the former, as documentary filmmakers attempt to examine lingering machismo among dockworkers, eventually discovering that the Revolution's goals for changes in consciousness have succeeded only "up to a certain point."
Alea returned yet again to the nexus between the sexual and the political with the best-known Cuban film of the 1990s, Strawberry & Chocolate (1993). The story of the unusual friendship that develops between a naive believer in Castro's contemporary version of communism and a more experienced, gay critic of the regime was widely praised and just as widely attacked. Some found it atypically gentle for Alea and read its gay lead as a cover-up of Castro's horrifying treatment of homosexuals, while others thought it needlessly provocative in its characterizations; such divergent responses only testify to the complexity typical of Alea's tapestries. In 1994, "Strawberry and Chocolate" became the first Cuban film to receive an Oscar nomination as Best Foreign Film. Alea has written or co-scripted all his features and, in accordance with ICAIC's collective approach to filmmaking, has served as advisor on two of the institute's most stylistically innovative films: El otro Francisco (1974), directed by Sergio Giral, and One Way or Another (1977), directed by Sara Gomez.
Alea has been less active in filmmaking in the 1980s and 1990s, and Juan Carlos Tabío has co-directed several of the aging master's recent films. He has, though, written a book of film theory, "Dialectica del espectador (1982)", and continued to inspire a new generation of sophisticated and politically committed artists.- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Rita Montaner was born on 20 August 1900 in Guanabacoa, Havana, Cuba. She was an actress, known for Negro es mi color (1951), Victims of Sin (1951) and La noche del pecado (1933). She was married to Javier Calderón Poveda, Ernesto Estévez Navarro, Alberto Fernández Díaz and Xavier Cugat. She died on 17 April 1958 in Havana, Cuba.- Actor
- Writer
- Composer
Scott Edmund Lane was born on 19 March 1950 in Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Angels with Angles (2005), Phantom of the Paradise (1974) and It's a Digital World (1994). He died on 12 December 2011 in Cuba.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Juan Carlos Tabío was born on 3 September 1943 in Havana, Cuba. He was a director and writer, known for Guantanamera (1995), El cuerno de la abundancia (2008) and Strawberry & Chocolate (1993). He died on 18 January 2021 in Havana, Cuba.- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
He felt drawn to music as a child. At the age of 14, Segundo learned to play the typical Cuban string instrument the tres, later adding the guitar. As a teenager, Segundo came to Santiago de Cuba to be fascinated by the cultural life of the big city. There he met the musician Miguel Matamoros, who had a decisive influence on his future career. As the leader of the music band in the city of Santiago, Segundo came to Havana in 1929 to gradually appear as a musician in bars and public places. Since he couldn't live on his own, the musician also began working as a hairdresser and cigar roller in the Cuban capital. In collaboration with famous musicians such as Sindo Garay, Nico Saquito, Miguel Matamaros and Benny Moré, Segundo revived the tradition of the Cuban "Son", which as a special musical style goes back to the struggle for the liberation of black slaves.
From the mid-1930s, Segundo created his own, unique style of the Cuban "Son": on a self-made instrument, the seven-string "Harmonico" guitar, the musician ensured the spread of the "Son", which he used in the songs he knew of the Cuban farmers. Segundo composed hundreds of songs that are now part of the "Son" standard repertoire. In 1939 Segundo joined the group "El Conjunto Matamaros". Towards the end of the 1940s he founded the duo "Los Compadres" with Lorenzo Hierrezuelo, in which he appeared for the first time under the stage name Compay Segundo. When Segundo was called to the Dominican Republic for an engagement in 1953, the duo broke up. In the following decades, the musician appeared as an ambassador for Cuban music in numerous countries around the world. In 1956, Segundo founded his own group under the name "Compay Segundo y sus Muchachos", which soon expanded from a trio to a quartet.
The band developed - not least with the participation of his son Salvador Repilado - into one of the largest Cuban groups in the classic "Son" tradition. With his participation in the "Buena Vista Social Club", Segundo only celebrated his breakthrough with a worldwide audience in 1997, i.e. at the age of 90, as the first recording of a record and his participation in the film of the same name by Wim Wenders led to the general popularization of the artist contributed. After his records sold over a million copies, Segundo received a record award in 2000. In the same year, the musician met Cuban leader Fidel Castro. He also met Pope John Paul II on one of his tours to Italy.
Compay Segundo died in Havana on July 14, 2003 at the age of 95. He left behind his life partner Aidita and a worldwide audience of millions of mourning fans.- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Ibrahim Ferrer was born on 20 February 1927 in Santiago, Cuba. He was an actor, known for The Party (2017), Buena Vista Social Club: Adios (2017) and Gorillaz: Live in Manchester (2006). He was married to Caridad Diaz. He died on 6 August 2005 in Havana, Cuba.- Sergio Corrieri was born on 2 March 1939 in Havana, Cuba. He was an actor, known for Memories of Underdevelopment (1968), The Man from Maisinicu (1973) and I Am Cuba (1964). He died on 29 February 2008 in Havana, Cuba.
- Director
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- Producer
One of the great filmmakers of revolutionary Cuba, Humberto Solás entered the film industry as a teenager, and made his first short at 18. After taking a film course at Centro Sperimentale de Cinema in Rome, he made a big impression with his 1966 medium-length fiction "Manuela", the first of many films dedicated to the Cuban woman. In 1968 his masterpiece "Lucía" won many prizes and brought him international recognition. But the so-called "parametrización" (discredit or persecution of homosexuals and other "anti-socials") during the early 70's, prevented him from making more personal films. In the 80s he had a big success with "Cecilia", followed by a big controversy due to his free adaptation (along with this longtime friend and collaborator, editor Nelson Rodríguez, and Norma Torrado, editor of documentalist Santiago Alvarez' classics "LBJ" and "Now") of "Cecilia Valdés o La loma del ángel", considered the "national novel" in Cuba. After this scandal, he proved he could make a film on time and under budget with "Amada" (co-directed with Rodríguez) and had another big hit with "Un hombre de éxito", which won first prize in the Havana and Cartagena film festivals. In 1992 he realized an old dream, when he filmed Alejo Carpentier's epic novel "El siglo de las luces" for French television.- Manuel Pereiro was born on 6 January 1927 in Havana, Cuba. He was an actor, known for Bad Medicine (1985), Novela (1963) and La comedia (1983). He died on 9 November 2020 in Cuba.
- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Enrique Pineda Barnet was born on 28 October 1933 in Havana, Cuba. He was a director and writer, known for I Am Cuba (1964), La bella del Alhambra (1989) and La anunciacion (2008). He died on 12 January 2021 in Havana, Cuba.- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Juventino Rosas was born on 25 January 1868 in Santa Cruz de Galeana, Guanajuato, Mexico. He was a composer, known for Heavenly Creatures (1994), Pitch Perfect (2012) and Irrational Man (2015). He died on 13 July 1894 in Surgidero de Batabanó, Cuba.- Alicia Alonso was born on 21 December 1920 in Havana, Cuba. She was an actress, known for Giselle (1965), Un retrato para Romeo y Julieta (1971) and Alicia Alonso y El Ballet Nacional de Cuba (1979). She was married to Pedro Simón Martínez and Fernando Alonso. She died on 17 October 2019 in Havana, Cuba.
- Aurora Basnuevo was born on 13 August 1938 in Colón, Matanzas, Cuba. She was an actress, known for Salsa and Love (1999), Day of the Flowers (2012) and Rosa la China (2002). She was married to Mario Limonta. She died on 26 September 2022 in Havana, Cuba.
- Director
- Writer
- Animation Department
Juan Padrón was born on 29 January 1947 in Havana, Cuba. He was a director and writer, known for Más ¡vampiros en La Habana! (2003), Quinoscopio 1 (1986) and Elpidio Valdés contra dólar y cañón (1983). He died on 24 March 2020 in Havana, Cuba.- Actress
- Music Department
Farah Maria was born on 7 December 1944 in Havana, Cuba. She was an actress, known for Ciplak (2006), Verde verde (2012) and Too Beautiful: Our Right to Fight (2018). She died on 30 December 2020 in Havana, Cuba.- Mario Balmaseda was born on 19 January 1941 in Havana, Cuba. He was an actor, known for Nazca (1995), One Way or Another (1977) and The Man from Maisinicu (1973). He died on 8 October 2022 in Havana, Cuba.
- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Benny Moré was born on 24 August 1919 in Santa Isabel de las Lajas, Cuba. He was a composer, known for Overboard (2018), Before Night Falls (2000) and Cuban Fury (2014). He died on 19 February 1963 in Havana, Cuba.- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Rubén González was born on 26 May 1919 in Encrucijada, Santa Clara, Cuba. He is known for Keeping the Faith (2000), Forces of Nature (1999) and The Rum Diary (2011). He was married to Eneida Lima. He died on 8 December 2003 in Havana, Cuba.- Writer
- Cinematographer
Alberto Granado was born on 8 August 1922 in Hernando, Córdoba Province, Argentina. He was a writer and cinematographer, known for The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), Un pedazo de mí (1989) and La huella del doctor Ernesto Guevara (2013). He was married to Delia Maria Duque Duque. He died on 5 March 2011 in Havana, Cuba.- Raquel Revuelta was born on 14 November 1925 in Havana, Cuba. She was an actress, known for I Am Cuba (1964), Siete muertes a plazo fijo (1950) and Lucia (1968). She died on 24 January 2004 in Havana, Cuba.
- Armando Bianchi was born on 26 August 1922 in Havana, Cuba. He was an actor, known for Yo soy el hombre (1952), El otro Francisco (1974) and Yo pecador (1959). He died on 28 July 1981 in Havana, Cuba.
- Actor
- Director
Adolfo Llauradó was born on 29 September 1941 in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba. He was an actor and director, known for The Man from Maisinicu (1973), La primera carga al machete (1969) and Amores (1994). He was married to Jacqueline Meppiel. He died on 3 November 2001 in Havana, Cuba.- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Songwriter ("Mama Inez"), composer and author, educated at the Cons. Nacional de Musica in Havana. In 1920, he conducted a theatrical group and toured Mexico and Central America, then founded his own troupe to perform his own compositions. At the Seville Expos, he was awarded the Gold Medal for folklore compositions, and then he went on to score films in France, Mexico and Cuba. His stage scores include "La Virgen Morena", "Nina Rita", and "La Camagueyana". Joining ASCAP in 1937, his chief musical collaborators included Al Stillman, Bickley Reichner, Marion Sunshine, Nat Burton, and Walter Kent. His other popular-song compositions include "Habanera", "Lamento Esclavo", "Facundo", "Rica Pulpa", "Spic and Spanish", "True and Sincere Love", "I'll Always Remember", "Cuba de mi Vida", "The Lady Likes to Love", "Congo Conga", and "Viena la Conga".- Humberto Arenal was a Cuban writer, who made the first part of his career in the off Broadway circuit, in USA. According to the Cuban journalist Yoe Suárez Humberto Arenal was "a man who wrote and lived novels. As a reporter in New York, he returned to Havana in 1959 after the dream (later the nightmare) of the Revolution. He found the adventure, he befriended the rebels of his generation, he experienced upheavals, he witnessed the betrayal, he followed the fidelity". Suárez remembered that, as an author, "he gave us memorable works. There is Gentleman Charles, a story anthologized on more than one occasion. The also writer César López once commented that, in his opinion, Humberto was one of the great storytellers of the Generation of 50. From his time on the stage (which was rather a long walk) the first productions of the mythical Cold Air remained in history, and the foundation, among others, of the Musical Theater of Havana and the Lyric Comedy «Gonzalo Roig». It seems superficial to say that almost twenty titles under his signature were added to the bibliographic catalogs, if when we talk about his work perhaps the most important thing is to highlight his deep knowledge of man in dissimilar contexts. Thus he revived on the scene a "foul-spoken" Benny Moré as believably as the distinguished Alberto of his second novel, The Sacred Animals".
- Eloisa Alvarez Guedes was born in 1916 in Matanzas, Cuba. She was an actress, known for El bautizo (1968). She died in 1993 in Havana, Cuba.
- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Manuel Octavio Gómez was born on 14 November 1934 in Cuba. He was a director and writer, known for Los días del agua (1971), La primera carga al machete (1969) and La tierra y el cielo (1977). He died on 2 January 1988 in Havana, Cuba.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Santiago Álvarez was born on 18 March 1919 in Cuba. He was a director and writer, known for 79 primaveras (1969), Hanoi, martes 13 (1968) and El sueño del pongo (1970). He died on 20 May 1998 in Havana, Cuba.- American novelist Ward Greene was born in Asheville, NC, in 1892 to a family that could trace its lineage back to the American Revolution (one of his ancestors was Gen. Nathanael Greene of the Continental Army, who served under Gen. George Washington). When he was a child the family moved to Atlanta, GA, where he was raised. He attended the University of the South in Tennessee from 1912-1913, and in 1913 he took a job on the "Atlanta Journal" as an assistant sports editor. He stayed at the paper for ten years, graduating from the sports department to covering the police beat to finally becoming the paper's "star" reporter. In 1918 the paper sent him to the battlefields of France to cover the war from the perspective of troops from Georgia.
Returning to the US after the war, he began to write in his spare time, and his first novel, "Cora Potts", was published in 1929. He has written several novels since then, with his most famous one probably being "Death in the Deep South" (1936), which was based on the notorious Leo Frank case in 1915, in which a group of citizens in the Georgia town of Marietta lynched a Jewish man named Leo Frank who was in jail accused of the rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl. As it turned out, Frank had nothing to do with the girl's death (she was raped and murdered by a janitor in the factory where her body was found, which was owned by Frank's family). The novel was a best-seller and was made into the film They Won't Forget (1937).
Ward Greene died of a heart attack in London, England, in 1969, at age 76. - Writer
- Director
- Editor
Julio García Espinosa was born on 5 September 1926 in Havana, Cuba. He was a writer and director, known for Reina y Rey (1994), The Adventures of Juan Quin Quin (1967) and El joven rebelde (1961). He was married to Dolores Calviño. He died on 13 April 2016 in Havana, Cuba.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Pastor Vega was born on February 12, 1940 in Havana, Cuba. He was a director and writer, known for Las profecías de Amanda (1999), Retrato de Teresa (1979) and Vidas paralelas (1993). From 1979 to 1990, Pastor Vega was the first Director of the Havana Film Festival (Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano). He was married to the actress Daisy Granados. He died on June 2, 2005 in Havana.- Germán Pinelli was born on 15 December 1907 in Havana, Cuba. He was an actor, known for Retrato de Teresa (1979), Los sobrevivientes (1979) and Leyenda (1981). He died on 19 November 1996 in Havana, Cuba.
- Juan Herbello was born on 3 September 1915 in Matanzas, Cuba. He was a writer, known for Obsesión (1957), Obsesión (1968) and Ante la ley (1955). He died on 15 March 1967 in Havana, Cuba.
- Gina Cabrera was born on 28 May 1928 in Havana, Cuba. She was an actress, known for La mentira (1952), Estrella sin luz (1953) and La rosa blanca (1954). She was married to Helio Dutra and Roberto Garriga. She died on 3 January 2022 in Havana, Cuba.
- Cuban actor born in Havana in 1921 who achieved great popularity in Cuban radio serials beginning in 1936. Noted for his acting versatility, Eduardo Egea excelled in both drama and comedy. His performances as super heroes "Tamakun", and "Leonardo Moncada" are still remembered in the island. In 1950 he made an easy transition to television as a leading man in telenovelas (soap operas), sitcoms, teleplays, as well as hosting variety programs. He was also successful on stage starting in 1948 with his critically acclaimed performance in Shakespeare's Hamlet. After years of tireless work on radio, television and stage, Mr. Egea made his last appearance playing Dmitri in a television serial based on Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamasov. Shortly after, in January 1964, he did not survive a surgery that removed one of his lungs. He was barely 43 years old.
- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Daniel Díaz Torres was born on 31 December 1948 in Habana, Cuba. He was a director and writer, known for Hacerse el sueco (2001), Kleines Tropicana - Tropicanita (1997) and Alice in Wondertown (1991). He died on 16 September 2013 in Habana, Cuba.- Ramón Mercader was born on 7 February 1914 in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. He died on 18 October 1978 in Havana, Cuba.
- Manuel Porto was born on 28 September 1945 in Havana, Cuba. He was an actor, known for Habana, Havana (2004), La vida en rosa (1988) and Caravana (1992). He died on 28 September 2021 in Havana, Cuba.
- Silvia Planas was born in 1901 in Havana, Cuba. She was an actress, known for Una novia para David (1985), Lucia (1968) and Death of a Bureaucrat (1966). She died in 1998 in Havana, Cuba.
- Enrique Hernández Armenteros was born on 19 February 1918 in Guanabacoa, Havana, Cuba. He died on 22 March 2017 in Guanabacoa, Havana, Cuba.
- Director
- Writer
- Cinematographer
Jose Massip was a Cuban film director and the winner of the 2012 National Film Award for his work during his 50 year career. He was founder of Cuba's Cinematographic Art and Industry Institute. He is known for directing "Historia de un ballet (Suite Yoruba)," "Paginas del diario de Jose Martí" and "Baragua."- Philip Agee was born on 19 July 1935 in Tacoma Park, Florida, USA. He was married to Giselle Roberge and Janet Wasserberger. He died on 7 January 2008 in Havana, Cuba.
- Emiliano Salvador was born on 19 August 1951 in Puerto Padre, Cuba. He was a composer, known for Las manos y el ángel (2002) and Jazz de Cuba (2004). He died on 22 October 1992 in Havana, Cuba.
- Carlos Ruiz de la Tejera was an actor, known for A Cuban Fight Against Demons (1972), Death of a Bureaucrat (1966) and The Other Christopher (1963). He died on 3 July 2015 in Habana, Cuba.
- Director
- Writer
- Cinematographer
Enrique Colina was born on 27 April 1944 in Havana, Cuba. He was a director and writer, known for Between Two Hurricanes (2003), Vecinos (1985) and Chapucerías (1987). He died on 27 October 2020 in Havana, Cuba.- Alina Rodríguez was born on 4 October 1951 in Havana, Cuba. She was an actress, known for Behavior (2014), The Waiting List (2000) and María Antonia (1990). She died on 27 July 2015 in Habana, Cuba.
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Pío Leyva was born on 5 May 1917 in Morón, Cuba. He is known for No Time to Die (2021), Buena Vista Social Club (1999) and Música cubana (2004). He died on 22 March 2006 in Havana, Cuba.- Camera and Electrical Department
Since he was a child he liked the cinema. But to know it from within was still a very far away dream. He enjoyed collecting photographs, so he bought a camera to take photos of whatever could be curious or interesting for him. In the year 1952, with only 15 years, he began his working life at the advertising agency "Mestre, Conill y Cía". In 1962, he began to work at ICAIC (Cuban Institute of the Cinematographic Art and Industry), taking his first steps as still-man in the Still-Photo Department. Her first job in a feature film was in "En Días Como Estos" (On Days Like These) from director Jorge Fraga, a film of 1963. The filmography of José Luis Rodríguez-Venegas amounts to more than 70 films, among which we can mention "Memorias del Subdesarrollo" (Memories of Underdevelopment), "Lucía", "Giselle", "El hombre De Maisinicú" (The Man From Maisinicu", "Cecilia", "La bella del Alhambra" (The Beauty of the Alhambra), "Adorables Mentiras" (Adorable Lies), and "Madagascar". During the making of "Alsino and the Condor" in Nicaragua, he also worked as an instructor of those who were beginning their careers in the filmmaking business in that Central American country. He took part playing small roles in films such as "Ustedes Tienen La Palabra" (You Have the Floor), "La Batalla Del Jigüe" (The Battle of Jigüe), "Guantanamera" and "Lista De Espera" (Waiting List). Because of his good qualities with the projection of his voice, he was involved in several dubbings and voiceovers. When he began to work in the Cuban film-making industry, he did it just for his love for art. During his thirty-seven years of work he never changed this way of and thinking and living. In 1998, the same year of his retirement from active work, two film directors called him to play secondary roles in two relevant Cuban films. These were "Lista De Espera" (Waiting List) and "Hacerse El Sueco" (To Play the Swedish). Although retired, he used to say that every night he dreamed of the cinema. About this he pointed out: "Something I always see in my dreams, is that I am working in an imaginary film". The name of José Luis Rodríguez-Venegas Pardillo (the Cuban Tom Mix) will always be on the list of those who made possible the Cuban Cinema.- Soundtrack
Mercedes Valdés was born in Havana, Cuba on September 24, 1922 (some sources state September 24, 1928, or October 14, 1928). She was one of the most popular Cuban singers, specializing in traditional Afro-Cuban music. Her recording career began in the 1940's and lasted until her death in 1996. In 1996 she was awarded the UNESCO Picasso Medal and Diploma of Merit. She died at age 73 in Havana, Cuba. June 13, 1996.