Alejo Carpentier

Movies

Le siècle des lumières
Novel
Follows the story of three privileged Creole orphans from Havana, as they meet French adventurer Victor Hugues and get involved in the revolutionary turmoil that shook the Atlantic World at the end of the eighteenth century. The main characters are all members of one family: two siblings, Carlos and Sofia, and their cousin Esteban.
Derecho de asilo
Writer
In an imaginary country in Latin America, a man asks for asylum in an embassy. Trickery, passion, and intrigue are the motives of his actions.
Baroque
Novel
A series of images, music and sounds which transport through Mexico's history, without any narrative sequence. The film spins constantly round the question 'Where are the singers from?'
The Recourse to the Method
Novel
Set in the early 1900s, this film charts the rule of a Latin American dictator as he moves from being a charming despot to a tyrannical ruler before he is finally ousted, only to die in obscurity in Paris. Early in his regime, the resources and agricultural products his country sells command high prices, and he is a reasonably confident, even gentle, ruler who likes to take long vacations with his daughter in Paris. After World War I, with falling prices and a number of coup attempts behind him, his rule becomes quite cruel.
Salut les Cubains
Self (uncredited)
A photo montage of Cubans filmed by Agnès Varda during her visit to Cuba in 1963, four years after Fidel Castro came to power. This black & white documentary explores their socialist culture and society while making use of 1500 pictures (out of 4000!) the filmmaker took while on the island.