Throughout the 1960s until her untimely death in 1974, Afro-Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez engaged directly and courageously with the social, political, economic, and cultural transformations promised by the Cuban Revolution.

Gómez directed numerous documentary films in 10 prolific years. She also made De cierta manera (One way or another), her only feature-length film. Her films navigate complex experiences of social class, race, and gender by reframing revolutionary citizenship, cultural memory, and political value. Not only have her inventive strategies become foundational to new Cuban cinema and feminist film culture, but they also continue to inspire media artists today who deal with issues of identity and difference. The Cinema of Sara Gómez assembles history, criticism, biography, methodology, and theory of Gómez's work in scholarly writing; interviews with friends and collaborators; the film script of De cierta manera; and a detailed and complete filmography.

Featuring striking images, this anthology reorients how we tell Cuban cinema history and how we think about the intersections of race, gender, and revolution. By addressing Gómez's entire body of work, The Cinema of Sara Gómez unpacks her complex life and gives weight to her groundbreaking cinema.

 

Susan Lord is Associate Professor in the Department of Film and Media at Queen’s University.

 

Susan Lord's profile page

Inés María Martiatu Terry's profile page

Lourdes Martínez-Echazábal's profile page

Odette Casamayor-Cisneros' profile page

Sergio Giral's profile page

María Caridad Cumaná's profile page

Víctor Fowler Calzada's profile page

Luis García Mesa's profile page

Devyn Spence Benson's profile page

Rigoberto López's profile page

Joshua Malitsky's profile page

Ana Serra's profile page

Iván Arocha Montes de Oca's profile page

Ricardo Acosta's profile page

Alan West-Durán's profile page

Sandra Abd’Allah-Alvarez Ramírez's profile page

A must-read for those researching and teaching feminist documentaries, decolonial ethnography, and the histories of Latin American Cinema.

Jump Cut

The release of this important critical anthology, alongside the release of the restorations, reinstates the work of Sara Gomez in the living archive of women film-makers and allwos her reintroduction into archives and counterarchives of Latin American cinema.

Film Quarterly