Feature film
One Way or Another
De cierta manera
Sara Gómez · 1977
Synopsis
In Miraflores, a new district of Havana built for former slum dwellers, Yolanda, a young schoolteacher from the middle class and committed to the revolution, falls in love with Mario, a factory worker who grew up in the slums. Her judgements about the neighbourhood and his machismo clash, while a certain Humberto, outwardly won over, goes on living in the old way. Documentary sequences and residents playing themselves interrupt the narrative.
Context
Produced in 1974, the film has inhabitants of Miraflores play themselves alongside actors such as Mario Balmaseda and Yolanda Cuéllar, and mixes a love story with documentary enquiry into race, class and sex after 1959, as far as the Abakuá religion and macho culture. The director died before the work was finished; Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Rigoberto López and Julio García Espinosa supervised the mixing and post-production. A damaged negative, sent to Sweden for repair, delayed the release until 1977. It is her only feature film.
Who it is for
A little under an hour and twenty minutes, in Spanish. Fiction and documentary alternate without transition, and questions of class, colour and sex are addressed head-on.
Prizes and reception
The first feature film directed by a woman in Cuba, cited by Havana critics among the ten most notable films of its year of release.
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