ABSTRACT
The thirteen-minute documentary P.M. (Post Meridiem), created by Orlando Jiménez Leal and Sabá Cabrera Infante, gives a vivid portrait of working-class nightlife along the docks of Havana in mid-century pre-revolutionary Cuba. Unfortunately, the film was made in the post-revolutionary Cuba of 1961, two years after the triumph of Fidel Castro’s armed movement, and therein lies the problem. The film shows plainly that nothing had changed in some sectors and lyricizes rather than condemns the traditions of urban nightlife. Made innocently rather than provocatively yet perceived by authorities as out of sync with its historical moment, the film will forever be known as the work of art that led to Fidel’s famous address “Words to the Intellectuals” with its signature dictum, “Within the Revolution, everything goes; against the Revolution, nothing” (Castro 1961).
