Comandante

Oliver Stone / Spain / 2003 / 99 min

Spanish with English subtitles

Relations between the USA and Cuba are anything but normal.
One of the United States’ most outspoken and controversial directors interviews one of the world’s most outspoken and controversial heads of state –Comandante, Fidel Castro. No prior arrangements were made about what should or should not be discussed and Castro responds to each of them. Castro talks for the first time in detail about his relationship to Che Guevara, Kennedy and Nixon, but he also talks about certain aspects of his private life. It is fascinating to see real footage of a man who is a piece of living history. Friendly, yet tenacious and dogged in pursuing various lines of questioning, Stone and Fidel conduct an often illuminating tête-àtête, elucidating how it is that Cuba has existed at the border of the world’s greatest superpower as its most persistent antagonist for more than four decades.
Largely unseen in the USA, this film is a fascinating insight into the mind of the man who has defied the USA for so long.

About the Director
Oliver Stone film director, producer and screenwriter. Stone became well known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for directing a series of films about the Vietnam War. His work frequently focuses on contemporary political and cultural issues, often controversially. He has received three Academy Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay for Midnight Express (1978), and Best Director for Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). Stone’s films often use many different cameras and film formats, including VHS, 8 mm film, and 70 mm film. He sometimes uses several formats in a single scene, as in JFK (1991) and Natural Born Killers (1994).In 2003, Stone made two documentary films: Persona Non Grata, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Comandante, about Cuban President Fidel Castro.In 2009, Stone completed a documentary about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the rise of progressive, leftist governments in Latin America
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