Juan carlos alom

 

Juan Carlos Alom is a Cuban photographer and filmmaker weaves together his unmistakable personal voice with collective concerns in his hand-processed 16mm black and white films. This survey presents his some of principal works, beginning with Habana Solo / Havana Solo (2000), in which Alom blends his fascination with the urban harmonies of Havana with a rhythmic exploration of the Afro-Cuban presence in Cuban society. In Diario / Diary (2009), he presents interior landscapes of Cuba, and its rural workers, who are transformed in a lyrical reflection on the final visit to the Island by Cuban Independence hero José Martí. In the USA, Santiago Álvarez’ experiments in the Newsreel Division of the ICAIC [the Cuban National Film Institute] are best remembered and most valued. Alom’s Lo más alto que tú vuelas/The Higher You Fly (2001) references Nicolás Guillén Landrián, Álvarez’ contemporary, another master of montage. A major figure in Cuban film production in the 1960s and 1970s, Guillén Landrián's work has begun to circulate internationally only in the last decade, and, in Cuba, it has become a beacon for filmmakers of future generations, of which Alom is one of the most notable examples.