Event

Mary Jane Regalado Presents: De Cierta Manera (One Way or Another

Mary Jane Regalado (Gauche, Downtown Boys) is a musician, visual artist, DJ and occasional radio show host currently residing in Washington, D.C. Her interests include subversive media, Chicanx feminism, underground art and record collecting. Her favorite film is Zootopia.

ABOUT THE FILM

Trained as a musician and ethnographer, Sara Gómez came from the folkloric Havana neighborhood of Guanabacoa traditionally viewed as one of the epicenters of Afro-Cuban popular culture. After entering the state film studio in 1961 as an apprentice, she worked as assistant director on several films including Agnes Vardas Salut les cubains! and Tomás Gutiérrez Aleas Cumbite. Though Gutiérrez Alea was a good friend and mentor to Gómez, he later admitted that Sarita was a disastrous assistant director: a minor defect she made up for with her uncanny originality, passion, and strength of character.

After completing several shorts, Sara set about making her first feature, De cierta manera. Ingeniously combining documentary and fiction, De cierta manera tells the story of a forward-thinking female schoolteacher who strikes up a relationship with a traditionally minded machista bus driver. Celebrated as a masterpiece of Cuban cinema, the film brings a penetrating criticism of racism, sexism, classism, and their persistence in Cubas revolutionary society.

Unfortunately, Gómezs tragic death due to an asthma attack at the tender age of 31 left the film incomplete. Thankfully Gutiérrez Alea, together with filmmaker-theorist Julio García Espinosa, ultimately finished the film in 1974 according to Gómez original vision and brought Cuba one of its unequivocal masterpieces of film art.

"Radical narrative documentary...complex critique of regressive machismo in Castros Cuba.One Way or Another reveals that, even in a post-revolutionary society, patriarchal attitudes must still be dismantled." BAM Cinematek