Following the founding of OSPAAAL, born out of the Tricontinental Conference in Havana in January 1966, a group of prominent Latin American filmmakers and documentarists, including Santiago Álvarez, Glauber Rocha, José Massip, Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, made films of undeniable impact and political and aesthetic relevance, combining formal invention and political militancy in favor of the anti-imperialist struggle and the liberation of the third world. Informally gathered around the manifesto Hacia un Tercer Cine, penned by Solanas and Getino and published in the pages of the sixteenth edition of the Tricontinental magazine (OSPAAAL publication, 1969), the movement of experimentation and artistic combat initiated by these authors came to inspire a whole range of filmmakers in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the United States, to establish an alternative route to both Hollywood and the authorial model advocated in publications such as “Cahiers du Cinéma” or “L’écran français”. This Tercer Cine (Third Cinema) was, therefore, a discursive and visual weapon in the service of the liberation of the countries of the Third World, a gesture in favor of all revolutionary movements and cultural decolonization.

Session # 1 – Wednesday, September 20

Now! (Santiago Álvarez, Cuba, 1965) 5 min
A short experimental film, Now! was made in solidarity with the struggles of African Americans in the face of racial segregation in the United States. With this film, whose articulation with the soundtrack, by Lena Horne, made him one of the first music videos ever made, Santiago Álvarez appears as a master of the “montage” (hinting, albeit inadvertently, with the practices of Vertov and Eisenstein) and “collage”, while also playing critically with “Pop Art”.

Hanoi Martes 13 (Santiago Álvarez, Cuba, 1967) 37 min
The first film made for OSPAAAL, Hanoi Martes 13 was filmed in the midst of the Vietnam War and documents the resistance of Vietnamese civilians against US imperialist repression.

Hasta la victoria siempre (Santiago Álvarez, Cuba, 1967) 19 min
Santiago Álvarez made this film in honor of Ernesto Che Guevara shortly after his disappearance in Bolivia, in October 1967. Here, it is not a question of proposing a crystallized, hagiographic reading of the hero, but rather of giving a moving image of Che, to keep him alive and fighting forever … until the final victory.

79 Primaveras (Santiago Álvarez, Cuba, 1969) 24 min
One of the most inventive and experimental films of Santiago Álvarez, made of archival images and playing with a soundtrack composed both by pop and classical music alike. Jean-Luc Godard felt so strongly about considering this one of the best portraits of the Vietnam war that he dedicated a chapter of his Histoire(s) du cinéma in homage to Alvarez.

Session # 2 – Friday, September 22

La hora de los hornos (Fernando Solanas, Argentina, 1968) Excerpts: 20 min
A cult movie lasting four and a half hours, La hora de los hornos strives for liberation in Argentina and in the Third World from an anticolonial and anti-imperialist perspective. Resorting forcefully to different types of sources (documentaries, archives, etc.) this film casts a critical eye not only on society but also on culture in Argentina. A counter-information, essayistic, pamphletary film, Fernando Solanas’ piece confronts all dominant views in the conviction that – as mentioned in the film – “mass communication is more effective than napalm.”

Madina Boe (Jose Massip, Cuba, 1968) 30 min
An important testimony on the liberation war against Portuguese colonialism in Guinea-Bissau and, especially, in the locality of Madina Boé. In this film, we find images of Amílcar Cabral with PAIGC guerrillas, images that would come to be included in many other documentaries.

El tigre saltó y mató, pero morirá… morirá (Santiago Álvarez, Cuba, 1973) 15 min
Obra de resposta ao golpe que, a 11 de Setembro de 1973, derrubou o governo de Salvador Allende e da Unidade Popular no Chile. Numa atitude de denúncia face ao regime ditatorial de Pinochet e à repressão que este exerceu sobre a esquerda chilena e sobre os mais variados sectores populares, este filme é um grito contra uma ditadura selvagem no Cone Sul da América Latina e um apelo à resistência popular contra aquele regime.

El tigre saltó y mató, pero morirá… morirá (Santiago Álvarez, Cuba, 1973) 15 min
Movie made in response to the coup that, on September 11, 1973, overthrew the government of Salvador Allende and Unidad Popular in Chile. In an attitude of denunciation of Pinochet’s dictatorial regime and its repression of the Chilean people, this film is a cry against a savage dictatorship and an appeal to popular resistance against that repression.

Milagro en la tierra morena (Santiago Álvarez, Cuba, 1973) 21 min
Very rare film about the Carnation Revolution, with interviews with members of the Portuguese MFA and images of Amílcar Cabral and the resistance forces in Guinea-Bissau. A look also at the power of the freedom of speech and the way it occupied the walls of a city in the midst of a revolutionary process.