Retelling Resistance: CUBAN FIGHT AGAINST THE DEMONS (1972) - Theatrical Screening

Details:

A CUBAN FIGHT AGAINST THE DEMONS

Tomás Gutierréz Alea, 1972, 120 min, Digital

Celebrated filmmaker Tomás Gutierréz Alea (Memories of Underdevelopment) mixes historical record with wild fabulation in this unruly period piece. The film follows Juan Contreras, a landowner in a 17th-century Cuba whose unorthodox ideas and free-spirited lifestyle run afoul of the Church and the Spanish colonial bureaucracy. Using radical techniques of cinematography and montage, Alea figures Contreras as a man “born too early,” one whose disobedience represents the first stirrings in a 300-year struggle for independence. Shown in a new restoration courtesy of the Academy Film Archive and the Cinemateca de Cuba.

Julio César Guanche Zaldívar, a Cuban historian and professor in the Program of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Northwestern University, will introduce the film. 

Restored by the Academy Film Archive in association with Cinemateca de Cuba 

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About the series:

Retelling Resistance

Inspired by the exhibition "Who Says, Who Shows, What Counts: Thinking About History with the Block’s Collection", this film series explores the intersection of historical memory and radical imagination. The films in Retelling Resistance revisit early episodes in the struggle against colonial and cultural imperialism, from the first revolts against the Spanish administration in Cuba to the Haïtian Revolution. These filmmakers embrace anachronism over historical accuracy, collapsing the past and the present to invoke a revolutionary spirit that endures across centuries. Including rarely-screened landmarks of Third Cinema alongside daring new experiments in collective filmmaking, Retelling Resistance invites us to expand our conceptions of history, and to contemplate the struggles for justice and independence we still confront today.

Health and Safety Guidelines

Northwestern is closely monitoring developments related to the coronavirus pandemic and will follow local, state, and University guidelines for in-person events and museum visitation. All visitors must follow the Northwestern University COVID-19 Guidelines, which are in place at the time of visitation, including masking within the galleries and auditorium.

We plan for this program to be offered in person. Should public health or Northwestern campus guidelines evolve, we will contact guests about online presentation or cancelation.

Contact The Block Museum of Art for more information: (847) 491-4000 or email us at block-museum@northwestern.edu