Solás, Humberto (1941–)

Humberto Solás is one of the great filmmakers of Cuban cinema. Born in Havana on December 14, 1941, he became politically aware from a young age, fighting in the Cuban resistance against President Fulgencio Batista when he was only fourteen years old. In 1959, at the age of seventeen, he joined the Instituto Cubano de Arte e Industria Cinematográfico, the Cuban Film Institute. Through his work there, he became a key part of the New Latin American Cinema movement of the 1960s, a generation of filmmakers whose work wedded art and politics. His 1968 release Lucía is generally considered one of the most important works of Latin American cinema. It follows the stories of three women named Lucía, each of whom lives in a different revolutionary period in Cuba's history: the fight for independence from Spain, the failed attempts at resistance against President Gerardo Machado in the 1930s, and the early period of the Cuban Revolution. Lucía won a Golden Prize at the 1969 Moscow Film Festival.

Despite this success, Solás was targeted during the Cuban government's crackdown on homosexuals, artists, and others thought to be "antirevolutionary" during the early 1970s and prohibited from making films about controversial topics. Nevertheless, he continued to work, and in 1982 his film Cecilia was nominated for a Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival. Cecilia was less controversial in the eyes of the Cuban authorities: It deals with a nineteenth-century slave rebellion. The next film, 1984's Amada, was also a period drama set in the late nineteenth century, about a love affair between an older woman and a younger man. The following year, Un Hombre de éxito (A Successful Man, 1985) also met with critical acclaim. This also was likely not viewed as controversial by the Cuban Revolution authorities as it deals with the pre-Revolutionary period and Castro's early rise to power.

Throughout his career Solás has received numerous awards, including the 2002 Silver Ariel from Mexico for his 2001 film Miel para Oshún (Honey for Oshun), which was the first Cuban full-length film shot entirely in digital video. In 2005 he released two films, a short, Adela, and Barrio Cuba, a comedy drama about finding love in Havana.

See alsoCinema: From the Silent Film to 1990; Cinema: Since 1990; Machado y Morales, Gerardo.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chanan, Michael. Cuban Cinema. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.

Flores González, Luis Ernesto. Tras la huella de Solás: Bibliografía anotada. Havana, Cuba: Ediciones ICAIC, 2000.

Noriega, Chon A., ed. Visible Nations: Latin American Cinema and Video. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.

                                       Emily Berquist