conditions with the conviction to deliver the best of themselves to a sociopolitical project that would result in higher benefits for society and for the personal fulfillment of everyone. Altruism and trust seems to be the common denominator of the disparate characters engaged in the project. They shared life, efforts and hopes at the productive labor camps in the small island, located about 30 miles south of Havana. We could see a hyperkinetic cultural promoter who did not need much time or resources to stage theater and, above all, to motivate inexperienced people. A moved case was the young daughter of a former political prisoner in exile. She narrated her difficulties to fit into the spaces and rooms reserved by her destiny. And it was impressive the testimony of a young singer, graduate from the School of Art, who virtually purges his guilt of being black by sowing in the furrows, after having been expressly rejected by his fellows at the Lyric Theater simply because of his skin color. In this harsh story, it is also shocking to see how the very victim, as protagonist, exerts a kind of censorship on himself while giving the account of his bitter experience. In a simple and magnificent manner, this documentary makes a sociological,
psychological and ethical portrait of a generation willing to contribute at its best to the revolutionary dream, but the fundamental value is time: that elapsed time that turns the film into a stark reflection on the Cuba they wanted to be and was not. It is a final demonstration of how many hopes, sacrifices and good faith were frustrated and betrayed. All of them makes the life experience of many Cubans. In light of that time and experiences, it is worth for the entire documentary the scene in which a young female leader stated she is convinced that the child conceived out of wedlock by one of her subordinates would be for sure more communist than they themselves are. The summit and posthumous work of Sara Gómez, One Way or Another( 1977), was one of the biggest cultural impacts on my teenage sensitivity. She left the film in the editing process; his teacher and lifelong friend Gutierrez Alea took charge along with Garcia Espinosa to complete it. The film offers a critical look at the peripheral and marginal enclaves to reflect with shattering realism the personal questions and conflicts of protagonists in search of identity and social integration within an environment of alleged radical transformations.
Sara Gomez in one of the shooting locations for her full-length film
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