Gabo & Cinema

It is said that Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez never allowed for a film adaptation of his singular masterpiece One Hundred Years of Solitude, arguably the most influential novel in any language of the second half of the twentieth century, to be produced. However, the prolific Colombian writer had strong ties to the movies.

Gabo & Cinema is a commendable and well-documented contribution to the general study of Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez’s cultural production. In the voice of his friends and accomplices, the documentary takes us beyond his literary figure and immerses us in his cinematic one.

García Márquez’s work inspired numerous film adaptations, and he wrote a handful of screenplays as well. The one-time journalist even penned movie reviews, a unique and indeed indispensable addition to the critical literature of a writer of world importance.

Additionally, García Márquez was the head of the Latin American Film Foundation and founded the International Film and Television School of San Antonio de los Baños together with Argentine poet and filmmaker Fernando Birri and Cuban filmmaker Julio García Espinosa. It became the first film and TV school to support Latin Americans in presenting the reality of the region’s social issues on screen. Today, both institutions are considered to be the best of their kind in the region.