A film institute was the first cultural institution to be created by the new Cuban
revolutionary government in 1959. One of its aims was to create a new cinema to suit the needs
of the Revolution in a climate of transformation and renewal. During the same period issues of
gender equality and gender relations became important as the Revolution attempted to eradicate
some of the negative social tendencies of the past. Through the prism of the gender debate
Cuban cinema both reflected and shaped some of the central ideological concerns on the island
at this time. This book brings together these two extremely significant aspects of the Cuban
revolutionary process by examining issues of gender and gender relations in six Cuban films
produced between 1974 and 1990. Using close textual analysis and theoretical insights from
feminism and postmodernism the author argues that the portrayal of aspects of gender relations
in Cuban cinema developed along a progressive path from expressions of the modern to
expressions of the postmodern.
