Sara Gómez

While studying high school, Sara studied music for six years at the "Amadeo Roldán" Municipal Conservatory of Havana. She practiced journalism in the student newspaper Mella and in the weekly Hoy, Domingo. She spent a few months in New York City and studied at ICAIC (Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry). She made three small documentaries for the Popular Encyclopedia directed by the filmmaker Octavio Cortázar (1935-2008). Later on, she was assistant director to the Belgian filmmaker Agnès Varda in the documentary Salut les cubains!, and also to Tomás Gutiérrez Alea in Cumbite and to Jorge Fraga in El robo, from 1965.

She began her career directing documentaries on popular culture and traditions, marginal populations, racism, feminism, and the social inclusion of women. In early 1974 she was promoted to director of fiction films at the ICAIC, and she began her debut feature, De cierta Manera. During the shooting, on June 2, 1974, she died - at the young age of 31 - due to respiratory arrest caused by one of her frequent asthma attacks, and the film had to be finished by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Julio García Espinosa.

Festival cine por mujeres