Cinema screens documentary

The photo of Marxist revolutionary fighter Ernesto “Che” Guevara, taken during the Sabotage of La Coubre memorial service in 1960, has become synonymous with rebellion.

Wearing a beret and staring intensely into the distance, the image has been plastered across propoganda posters, newspapers and T-shirts during the past 50 years.

The man behind the iconic photo, Cuban photographer Alberto Korda, is less well known.

IU Cinema organized a screening of “Kordavision,” a 2008 documentary by Hector Cruz Sandoval, on Monday.

Sandoval was scheduled to speak before the screening, but had to cancel due to an unexpected hospitalization last week.

“Kordavision” was the second of four films screened in cooperation with the CUBAmistad Celebration of Cuban Art and Film.

The director met Korda when Pope John Paul II visited Cuba in 1998.

Sandoval recorded Korda revisiting his fashion photography studio from the late 1950s and subjects of his photographs from subsequent years.

The pair also revisted the village where Korda took a photo that changed his career path.

Korda photographed a 2-year-old girl named Paulita who was too poor for a doll, so held a log with a ribbon instead.

He said it was a defining moment that made clear the inequalities present in Cuba.
“I realized I had to abandon this frivolity,” Korda said in the film.

Korda then left fashion photography and began photographing the revolution.

“During these formative years, Korda amassed an archive of over 12,000 photos,” said Michael Martin, director of the Black Film Center/Archive, during the screening introduction. “He became Fidel Castro’s personal photographer and, some say, his friend.”

Halfway through the documentary, Sandoval accompanied Korda and three photographers Korda worked with at Cuban paper Revolucion to meet with Castro.
Korda joked with Castro as they flipped through some of the most famous photos he took during the revolution.

“Kordavision” included some of the last footage of Korda before his death in 2001.

While reflecting on his iconic photo of Guevara, Korda said it was taken in an “unexpected moment” and happened from “pure chance.”

Sandoval was also scheduled to give a lecture, titled “Picturing Che,” at 12:15 p.m. today at the IU Art Museum.

The lecture will take place without Sandoval in front of photos of Guevara by Joe Tilson in the Gallery of the Art of the Western World.

Brazilian film Director Kleber Mendonça Filho will appear as scheduled for an introduction and question and answer session.