About the Documentary

Revolucion: Five Visions reframes the Cuban revolution through the art of photography, telling the personal stories of five photographers whose lives and work span nearly five decades of Cuban history. Shot on 24P hi-definition video by Mexico’s premiere director of photography, Chuy Chavez, the film is a breathtaking visual exploration of Cuba yesterday and today.

In 1959, Fidel Castro recognized the mesmerizing power of images and selected a group of photographers to “tell the story of the revolution in pictures.” These are five of their stories.

When the Soviet Union fell, Cuba was thrown into an economic crisis. In the early 1990s, many artists fled Cuba, and those remaining were forced to reconcile the individual creative impulse with the demands of a collective society and those of surviving a severe economic crisis.

New generations of photographic artists continue to tell the story of the ongoing revolution in pictures. The story they tell, though, is very different from the one Castro set out to convey. Today, Cuban photographers use the medium to express dissent, criticism, and their own ideas of history and truth. Whether it is the passionate resistance of the revolutionary or the individual artist’s struggle to emerge as an independent voice in a collective society, the photographers in Revolucion reveal the defiance of revolutionaries and artists alike and discover the power of art to liberate.

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