LUCÍA
Cuba, 1968 | 160 mins
Spanish with English subtitles
Director: Humberto Solás
Thursday, Aug 31
2:00 PM | The Cinematheque
In his award-winning film Lucía, Humberto Solás interpreted the theme of Cuba’s hundred years’ struggle in an entirely novel way to create an epic in three separate episodes, each centred around a woman called Lucía and each unfolding in a different period of Cuban history, corresponding to the three stages of colonialism (1895), neocolonialism (1930) and socialist revolution (1968). The three episodes also present us with “Lucías” of different social classes. Solás described his film in this way: “The woman’s role always lays bare the contradictions of a period and makes them explicit: Lucía is not a film about women, it’s a film about society.”
“It’s the best discussion of equality (and inequality) I’ve seen on screen, and the clashes are clarified by comedy.” Nora Sayre, The New York Times
En Lucía, Humberto Solás interpreta el tema de la lucha de los cien años de forma totalmente nueva: una epopeya en tres episodios distintos, cada uno centrado en torno a una mujer, Lucía, que se desarrolla en un periodo diferente de la historia cubana, correspondiente a las tres etapas del colonialismo, el neocolonialismo y la revolución socialista. Los tres episodios nos presentan también “Lucías” de diferentes clases sociales. Según Solás, “el papel de las mujeres revela las contradicciones de un periodo y las hace evidentes. Lucía no es una película sobre las mujeres sino una película sobre la sociedad”.
Producers: Raúl Canosa, Camilo Vives
Writers: Julio García Espinosa, Nelson Rodríguez, Humberto Solás
Cinematographer: Jorge Herrero
Editors: Nelson Rodríguez
Cast: Raquel Revuelta, Eslinda Núñez, Adela Legrá
Humberto Solás Borrego (Havana, Cuba, 1941-2008) studied at the University of Havana and built his filmmaking career chronicling the stories of Cuba’s struggles, highlighting the stories of women and gay people under Castro’s regime. He rocketed to fame with his direction of the black-and-white Manuela (1966) and his following film Lucia is widely regarded as his masterpiece.
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