The Leo Panitch School for Socialist Education is very pleased to present Memories Of Underdevelopment (1968) as the second film in the new FilmSocial series on Cuba. It is more important than ever to keep attention on Cuba and the crisis it is going through from US aggression.

Memories Of Underdevelopment was directed by the prolific Cuba director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea. It is Gutiérrez Alea’s most famous work and arguably Cuba’s most acclaimed film. It was elected one of the best film’s of all time in the Sight & Sound 2012 poll. It follows Sergio, a relatively wealthy writer, who decides to stay in Cuba after the revolution while his wife and many of his friends choose to leave for Miami. Sergio looks back over the changes in Cuba and the effect of living in what he calls an underdeveloped country.

Gutiérrez Alea’s work is representative of the greater New Latin American Cinema movement occuring in the 1960s and 1970s. Memories Of Underdevelopment is specifically an example of “Imperfect Cinema” which rejected the “perfect” style of Hollywood movies and the “art cinema” of European movies. Imperfect cinema rejects elitism and focuses on the process over the product. The movement’s main goal was to make films where the viewer becomes an active participant.

When: August 28 – Doors: 6:45pm
Where: College Street United Church, Toronto