Sara Gómez (1943-1974) was Cuba’s first woman filmmaker, making 19 documentaries that offer uniquely intimate and inquisitive portraits of those whom history could forget: women, Afro-descendent people, the young and the very old. She died while making her feature film, De cierta manera. Iré a Santiago was one her first films, portraying the city of Santiago de Cuba in a highly energetic and playful style of direct cinema, connecting the contemporary people, and spaces of this eastern city, to a past of slavery and resistance music, dance, and daily life. “There is no doubt about our condition as people of the Antilles – Sara wrote – but all this is almost a Cuban legend built through a dream. What happens is that Santiago is there. So it’s true: Cuba is an island in the Antilles. And mulato? Mulato is a state of mind.”

Susan Lord