Che Guevara: The making of an icon

The Lost City

September 2005 •English

In Havana, Cuba in the late 1950's, a wealthy family, one of whose sons is a prominent nightclub owner, is caught in the violent transition from the oppressive regime of Batista to the Marxist government of Fidel Castro. Castro's regime ultimately leads the nightclub owner to flee to New York.

Personal Che

September 2007 •English

A documentary that explores the myth behind the truth. Different people around the globe reinterpret the legend of Che Guevara at will: from the rebel living in Hong Kong fighting Chinese domination, to the German neonazi preaching revolution and the Castro-hating Cuban. Their testimonies prove that the Argentinian revolutionary's historical impact reverberates still. But like with all legends, each sees what he will, in often contradictory perspectives.

Comandante

February 2003 •English

Oliver Stone spends three days filming with Fidel Castro in Cuba, discussing an array of subjects with the president such as his rise to power, fellow revolutionary Che Guevara, the Cuban Missile crisis, and the present state of the country.

Che: Part Two

December 2008 •English

After the Cuban Revolution, Che is at the height of his fame and power. Then he disappears, re-emerging incognito in Bolivia, where he organizes a small group of Cuban comrades and Bolivian recruits to start the great Latin American Revolution. Through this story, we come to understand how Che remains a symbol of idealism and heroism that lives in the hearts of people around the world.

Che: Part One

September 2008 •English

The Argentine, begins as Che and a band of Cuban exiles (led by Fidel Castro) reach the Cuban shore from Mexico in 1956. Within two years, they mobilized popular support and an army and toppled the U.S.-friendly regime of dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Bloody Che Contra

January 1968 •English

The story of Che Guevara's desperate attempt to escape the mountains of Bolivia. Pursued by an elite ranger unit of the army led by a determined CIA agent, Che is eventually trapped and his men are killed.

Jeronimo

November 2019 •English

Born to Korean immigrant parents freed from indentured servitude in early twentieth century Mexico, Jerónimo Lim Kim joins the Cuban Revolution with his law school classmate Fidel Castro and becomes an accomplished government official in the Castro regime, until he rediscovers his ethnic roots and dedicates his later life to reconstructing his Korean Cuban identity. After Jerónimo's death, younger Korean Cubans recognize his legacy, but it is not until they are presented with the opportunity to visit South Korea that questions about their mixed identity resurface.

My Enemy's Enemy

August 2007 •English

Reveals an alternate history of the post-war world. This is a version of history where, in contrast to what we are all told, fascist ideology prevailed. The story of Klaus Barbie, Nazi torturer, American spy, tool of repressive right-wing regimes, is symbolic of the real relationship that the "Western" governments had with fascism and makes us see the world as it is today - and the politicians that inhabit it - in a different way.

Seguridad

April 2024 •Spanish

In her feature documentary Seguridad, Newfoundland-based filmmaker Tamara Segura—once named “Cuba’s youngest soldier” in a militia publicity stunt—portrays her troubled relationship with her father in the context of the Cuban Revolution. When Segura accepts a scholarship to study film in Canada, the move offers crucial distance from her alcoholic father. After four years, she returns to Cuba hoping to make amends. But her father’s sudden death just days after her arrival forces Segura to explore his troubled past and the role Cuba’s highly militarized system played in his downfall. Through a series of deeply personal on-camera interviews with her immediate family, Segura unearths long-held secrets that ultimately tell a story of resilience and profound love between family members. Seguridad artfully weaves a lifetime’s worth of still photographs into its intimate narrative, which offers a rare glimpse into the inner lives of Cubans in the post-revolutionary era.

Ernesto Guevara, also known as "Che"

October 2015 •Spanish

From millions of photos, posters, videos, t-shirts, postcards, records, books, phrases, testimonies, Che watches over us. Beyond all paraphernalia, he returns. Irreverent, mocking, stubborn - morally stubborn - Che will always be the subject of debate. The exclusive teleSUR series “Ernesto Guevara, also known as 'Che'”, aims to address the figure of Ernesto Guevara as it has never been told before. Conversing with the characters who were with him in important moments, visiting the real settings where Che spent his life.

The Crazy Che

November 2015 •Spanish

The incredible story of Bill Gaede, an Argentinian engineer, programmer… and Cold War spy.

Sacrificio: Who Betrayed Che Guevara

January 2001 •Swedish

The two young Swedish journalist's Erik Gandini and Tarik Saleh have worked one year with Sacrificio, a film about the events surrounding the death of Che Guevara. They have traveled the world around and met among others the man who shot Che Guevara and the former CIA agent who walks around with Che's last tobacco in his pistol butt. In their attempts to find out what really happened they discover that the man who is accused of having betrayed Che Guevara as a matter of fact lives in Malmö, in the south of Sweden.

American Comandante

November 2015 •English

U.S. citizen William Morgan rises to power in Cuba during the Cuban Revolution.

Plantadas

June 2023 •Spanish

Alina, Luisa and América are three women who after fighting to restore and stabilize democracy to their country realize they’ve been betrayed by the leader of the revolution. The three women begin to confront and challenge the new system in their own ways and for different reasons they find themselves jailed.

El camino

September 2015 •Spanish

Hello Cubans

November 1963 •French

A photo montage of Cubans filmed by Agnès Varda during her visit to Cuba in 1963, four years after Fidel Castro came to power. This black & white documentary explores their socialist culture and society while making use of 1500 pictures (out of 4000!) the filmmaker took while on the island.

City in Red

April 2009 •Spanish

A 2009 Cuban drama by Rebeca Chávez taking place in Santiago de Cuba at the beginning of revolution. In the late 1950s, the city of Santiago de Cuba was afire, the site of some of the fiercest resistance to the murderous dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. The film's narrative unfolds over 24 hours in the lives of several youthful members of the underground as they confront their own uncertainty about the morality of armed struggle and the necessity of severing bonds that had seemed unbreakable.

Maestra

March 2012 •English

Cuba, 1961: 250,000 volunteers taught 700,000 people to read and write in one year. 100,000 of the teachers were under 18 years old. Over half were women. MAESTRA explores this story through the personal testimonies of the young women who went out to teach literacy in rural communities across the island - and found themselves deeply transformed in the process.

Che: A New Man

January 2010 •English

The latest documentary by Tristan Bauer took 12 years to complete. It is a unique and invaluable historical document—a jewel not to be missed—that offers us a different, more intimate and personal, perspective on the life of Ernesto Che Guevara than other films about him that have emerged recently. Presenting brilliantly edited archival material, including private documents and intimate recordings that have never been made available to the public before (including recordings of Che reading poems by Vallejo and Neruda to his wife, intimate family gatherings on 8mm, a speech given by Che in French), Bauer allows us to see the iconic figure as a hero but also as the larger-than-life passionate and idealistic human being that he was.

Our House in Cuba

November 2015 •Spanish

There was a time in Argentina, not so long ago, when the army wasn't only one, official, but many and made up by civilians. In those times of courageous youths determined to fight to the death for that cause upheld around Peronism as wll as some left-wing postulates, revolutionary Cubas was a beacon of hope in the world scheme -a Montonero nation. "A House in Cuba" seeks to recover the curious adventure of a couple of Montonero parents and their small children, who were lovingly sent into exile in order for their parents to take up arms.