Memorias del subdesarrollo
Line up: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea | 1968 | Cuba | 96’ | EN subtitles
Tickets: € 5 / or Cineville
When the Bay of Pigs invasion (1961) shakes Cuba, Sergio’s wife and friends leave for the United States. Sergio stays. From the balcony of his Havana apartment, he watches the city change and fills his days with women, books and long walks through the streets. Elena, a young woman he meets by chance, becomes the centre of a new affair, while the people and habits of his former life slowly disappear around him. Outside, the Revolution gathers pace.
Adapted from Edmundo Desnoes’s novel, Alea’s film folds Sergio’s memories into the changing streets of Havana. Blurring the boundaries between personal experience and historical reality. The line between what Sergio remembers, what he sees, and what Cuba is becoming is never quite fixed. A landmark of Cuban cinema and one of the most distinctive films to emerge from the revolutionary 1960s.