Cuba and the Cameraman
Description
Since the early 1970s, filmmaker Jon Alpert has been travelling to Cuba, filming the country and its people. From his earliest trips, working with the first generation of video cameras, Alpert gained the trust of Fidel Castro, and interviewed him at regular intervals, even landing the chance to travel with him on a notorious 1979 trip to the US. But it’s the people of the country who are the real stars of the film. As Alpert notes, “Fidel affected every single Cuban, whether people benefitted or suffered.” Over the course of four decades, he makes unannounced visits to check in on a regular group of people, including a family of farmers working in the remote countryside and a budding entrepreneur trying to make it in the city. Alpert’s warm engagement with these ordinary citizens creates an intimate street-eye view to the fate of the revolution and the nation.
Jon Alpert is a graduate of Colgate University and has traveled widely as an investigative journalist, reporting from Vietnam, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, and many other locales. Over the course of his career, he’s won 15 Emmy Awards and has made films for NBC, PBS, and HBO. He’s twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject and, with his wife Keiko Tsuno, has founded the Downtown Community Television Center, one of the country’s first community media centers. About Cuba and the Cameraman, Alpert writes, “The people you will get to know invited me into their lives and accepted me as part of their families. Even Fidel. They let me witness a half century of their history, hopes, and human struggle.”
Film Details
Language English
Year 2017
Runtime 113
Country USA
Director Jon Alpert
Producer Jon Alpert, Matthew O'Neill
Editor David Meneses
Cinematographer Jon Alpert
Print Source Netflix