Alea, Tomás Gutiérrez

born Dec. 11, 1928, Havana, Cuba

died April 16, 1996, Havana

Cuban film director.

After earning a law degree in Cuba, he studied filmmaking in Rome (1951–53). A supporter of Fidel Castro, he helped develop Cuba's film industry after 1959 and made the Communist regime's first official feature film, Stories of the Revolution (1960). Later he worked within the restrictions of the regime to satirize and explore various aspects of life in postrevolutionary Cuba in such internationally acclaimed films as Death of a Bureaucrat (1966), Memories of Underdevelopment (1968), The Survivors (1978), and Strawberry and Chocolate (1993). He is regarded as the finest director Cuba has produced.

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▪ 1997

      ("TITÓN"), Cuban filmmaker (b. Dec. 11, 1928, Havana, Cuba—d. April 16, 1996, Havana), worked within the stringencies of revolutionary Cuba to satirize bureaucracy. Regarded as the nation's finest director, he stimulated the Cuban film industry as one of the leaders of the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos, which was founded in 1959 when Cuba adopted socialism. His masterwork, Memorias del subdesarrollo (1968; Memories of Underdevelopment), is a sophisticated study of an intellectual who is searching for his place in revolutionary Cuba. His most popular piece—Fresa y chocolate (1993; Strawberry and Chocolate)—about a homosexual man living in a macho society, was feted at international film festivals and became the first Cuban motion picture to be nominated for an Academy Award. Alea graduated with a degree in law from the University of Havana before studying (1951-53) at the Centro Sperimentale film school in Rome, which at the time was awash in the Neorealist influences of Roberto Rossellini and Luis Buñuel. In his first full-length feature, Historias de la revolución (1960; Stories of the Revolution), Alea was influenced by Rossellini. Later he borrowed from Buñuel in such films as La última cena (1976; The Last Supper) and Los sobrevivientes (1978; The Survivors). These and other pieces—such as La muerte de un burócrata (1966; Death of a Bureaucrat)—made sharp use of humour to probe the prevailing bourgeois mentality. With cancer encroaching, he invited Juan Carlos Tabío to co-direct his last two films—Fresa y chocolate and Guantanamera (1995).

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