Accelerated Under-Development: In the Idiom of Santiago Alvarez

Travis Wilkerson constructs a documentary tribute to the revolutionary Cuban filmmaker Santiago Álvarez Román (1919–1998), the legend of militant cinema. After losing his footage from an interview with Álvarez due to a technical failure, and spending time in Cuba immersed in his cinema, Wilkerson creates an alternative form for his portrait, reflexively emulating Álvarez’s technique of ‘nervous montage’ and use of found footage, to craft his own cinematic weapon. As Alvarez said: “Give me two photos, music, and a Moviola, and I’ll give you a movie”.