The work of Santiago Alvarez has greatly influenced the course of the Cuban documentary. His more than 100 documentary films have received international acclaim; and as director of the Latin American Newsreel division of ICAIC, he has turned out a newsreel a week for some 22 years. His work combines a visually exciting style with partisan political content. He has stated, “I am not objective... I will attempt to use images to sell socialism as powerfully as capitalism uses images to sell products.”
79 Primaveras (79 Springtimes) chronicles the political life and historical impact of the Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh with still photos and archival footage gathered into a film-poem (1969, 25 mins). Mi Hermano Fidel (My Brother Fidel) is an interview with an elderly campesino who recalls the year 1895, when he met the heroes Jose Marti and Maximo Gomez; he is slow to realize that his interviewer is Fidel Castro (1977, 17 mins, Color). Un Amazona de Pueblo Embravecido (A River of People Enraged), scenes of a massive Havana rally triggered by the departure of 125,000 disaffected Cubans in 1980 (1980, 22 mins, Color newsreel). In Now, images of the 1960s civil rights protests in the U.S. are edited to the rhythm of Lena Horne's recording of “Now” (1965, 6 mins, Newsreel). El Desafio (The Challenge) is a record of Fidel Castro's 1979 visit to New York; his speech to the UN General Assembly as spokesman of the non-aligned nations is punctuated by images of conditions in those nations (1979, 40 mins, Color newsreel).