Cuba and the Cameraman

A filmmaker’s loveletter to a country – and Castro

Certificate 12 Director Jon Alpert Cast Jon Alpert, Fidel Castro, members of the Cuban public Released Out now

In his quest to highlight social injustices and agitate for reform in the United States in the late 1960s and early ’70s, documentary filmmaker Jon Alpert became heavily invested in the socialist revolution in the neighbouring island state of Cuba.

In Cuba and the Cameraman, Alpert has collected the highlights of his numerous visits to Cuba, during which he gained unparalleled access to and built genuine relationships with the people of the country, from poor countryside farmers to Fidel Castro himself. This collection of footage is fascinating, accrued over 45 years, during which Alpert visited and revisited the same people, from the optimism of the 1970s, when the Cuban economy was robustly supported by the Soviet Union, through the collapse of the 1990s after the fall of the Iron Curtain in Europe, and right up to Castro’s death in 2016. We see this evolving state of Cuba through these people, a trio of farmer brothers, a young city girl who turned into a housewife, and the ever-defiant, always charming but increasingly embittered Castro himself.

As a balanced account of Revolutionary

Cuba, this film probably won’t be of much help because Alpert is far from objective in his approach and commentary – and he freely admits as much. However, his infectious personality and unabashed enthusiasm towards his subjects (many of whom seem to become genuine friends of his) open up a view of Cuba that is rarely seen.

While Cuba and the Cameraman is a deeply personal and subjective account of the country, it is an eminently watchable one.