Anecdotes

The first film to be made in post-revolutionary Cuba to be released in the United States.

Alea was heavily influenced in his style by Alain Resnais' Hiroshima mon amour (1959).

In a cheeky nod to the rigid Catholic censors of the Batista regime, Alea includes a reel of titillating footage that they had excised from Western films.

In the Kennedy speech montage, Charles Mingus' "Oh Lord Don't Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb on Me" can be heard.

When the US National Society of Film Critics awarded the film a special prize in 1973, Alea was denied a visa to attend the ceremony.

Tomás Gutiérrez Alea: the director that Sergio is talking to at the ICIAC about the collage film