ABSTRACT
Before the Revolution, Alea had worked for three years (1956-1959) at Cine- Revista, a Mexican-owned production company, directing shorts that were shown before regular screenings. He had also worked on a total of seven film projects, three with photography by Néstor Almendros, one in collaboration with Julio Garcia Espinosa, and one as assistant director for a student project at the Centro Sperimentale in Rome. None of these experiences, he explains, prepared him for the kind of films he would direct after the Revolution:
Camilo Cienfuegos, who at the time [early 1959] headed the Rebel Army, had the idea of creating within the Rebel Army, a Cultural Section with a department of film. He called on Julio [García Espinosa] and me [Alea] to make documentaries with urgent themes. We were happy to comply The project satisfied our yearning to make a useful cinema, and so we organized the department enveloped by great fervor and effervescence. That was in the first months after the Revolution, and we slept an average of three or four hours a day: we did not want to miss a thing of what was going on. 1 [emphasis mine]
