Images of Ernesto "Che" Guevara are the most contested and reproduced in
Latin America, and this program explores ways this iconic figure has been
represented. Diálogo con el Che (Dialogue with Che, 1968, newly restored,
53’), is a legendary film by queer Nuyorican artist José Rodriguez Soltero
that parodies Hollywood portrayals of the revolutionary hero. Una foto
recorre el mundo (A Photograph Travels the World [1981, 13’]) by Pedro
Chaskel (also know at the editor of The Battle of Chile, 1975) analyzes the
iconic photograph of el Che taken by Alberto Korda at a political rally in
1960, and the unending international (and commercial) appropriations of
this image. Leandro Katz’ El día que me quieras (1997, 30’) retraces the
story behind the last photographs Freddy Alborta took of Che Guevara as he
lay dead, surrounded by his captors, in 1967.
In Person: Venezuelan Actor Rolando Peña
“Rodriguez-Soltero’s most effective film was Dialogue with Che, starring
Taylor Mead and Rolando Peña… Presented at the Cannes and Berlin Film
Festivals in 1969, it aroused a storm of controversy because of its offhand
violence. Soltero’s camerawork is wild and improvisatory, engaging the
subject with a ceaseless series of zooms and pans, in the manner of
Warhol’s Chelsea Girls.” – Wheeler Winston Dixon: The Exploding Eye: A Re-
Visionary History of 1960s American Experimental Cinema
"Visually exquisite and deeply moving, El día que me quieras is at once an
elegy to the passing of the age of revolution in Latin America and an
investigation into the history and mythos surrounding the infamous
photograph of the beatific corpse of its central icon: Che Guevara."
– Jeffrey Skoller, Afterimage
Curated by Jesse Lerner, Luciano Piazza, Steve Anker and Bérénice Reynaud
