- Free and open to the public.
Fidel, the most recent work of Estela Bravo, the world-renowned documentary filmmaker, will be screened in English, without subtitles, at New York University’s King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center, 53 Washington Square South, on Wednesday, October 27, 6:15 p.m. The film screening will be followed by a Q& A with the filmmaker and with the producer, Ernesto Bravo. For further information the public may call (212) 998-3650.
Fidel, which was first shown on Britain’s Channel 4 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Castro’s rise to power, presents astonishingly intimate footage of Fidel Castro. Bravo uses impressive archival footage and interviews with Castro to tell the story of Cuba’s battle with the U.S., and its struggle to reassert itself after the withdrawal of Soviet aid.
At the age of 47 in 1980, Bravo produced her first documentary film, Those Who Left, which centered on the return of Cubans from Miami to their homeland after 20 years. Since then she has produced more than 15 internationally acclaimed documentaries. By the time she began to make Fidel, Bravo was one of Cuba’s top filmmakers.
Bravo was born in New York in 1933 into a working-class family of European immigrants. She studied sociology at Brooklyn College. In 1955 she moved to Argentina and married Ernesto Bravo, working in that country as a teacher and later for an airline company. In 1963, Ernesto was asked to teach biochemistry at the Medical School of the University of Havana. They have lived in Cuba ever since.
This event is co-sponsored by NYU’s King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center, Gallatin School of Individualized Study, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and Tisch School of the Arts.