ABOUT THE PROJECT
Cuban Diaspora Studies is an increasingly vital field that has been gaining momentum in recent decades. There have been numerous publications on Afro-Cuban culture, music, literature, and even radio produced by Cubans outside of Cuba. However, Cuban film scholars have yet to include the works of Cubans residing outside of the island, despite the number of Cuban directors working in the US even before 1959. It is now crucial to reevaluate the concept of “the national,” which can no longer be defined from a strictly territorial or geographical standpoint.
The Cuban Diaspora Film Archive aims to document and preserve this essential part of the diasporic cultural heritage. By collecting and archiving materials related to these diasporic filmmakers, the archive seeks to establish a new history of Cuban cinema that accounts for the extensive audiovisual production made outside of Cuba. The archive is a research, teaching, and learning project that integrates education in Cuban cinema and culture, new media, and archival primary research. It provides a global view of contemporary Cuban culture and its connection with the Latinx communities.
NOTE: The current version of the Cuban Diaspora Film Archive is a beta version built on very limited internal funding. The project is expected to complete within the next three to four years, with the assistance of external grants. For more information on this project and future related projects, please visit the Research Page of this Portal.
CDFA STAFF
Santiago Juan-Navarro, Ph.D.
Founding Director
Dr. Juan-Navarro is a Professor of Hispanic Literature and Film in the Department of Modern Languages at Florida International University. He holds a Ph.D. in Spanish and Comparative literature from Columbia University and has extensively published and lectured on Cuban cinema. He has developed and taught undergraduate and graduate Cuban film courses and served as Graduate Director and Associate Chair in the Department of Modern Languages. He has authored several books, including Archival Reflections: Postmodern Fiction of the Americas, Nuevas aproximaciones al cine hispánico, La ciudad en la literatura y el cine, and Los estudios culturales hispánicos en el siglo XXI. He has also published over one hundred articles, book chapters, film notes, encyclopedia entries, and book/film reviews in international refereed journals. Dr. Juan-Navarro serves on the editorial board of several scholarly journals and has evaluated book manuscripts and grant proposals for various organizations and institutions, including the National Endowment for the Humanities, Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Institut Charles Cros-France, Centre Interuniversitaire de Recherche sur l’Education et la Culture, Swiss National Science Foundation, City University of New York, and the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. He has received several awards, including the Florida International University Foundation Research Award (1997), the Faculty Senate Teaching Award (2003), the Provost Humanities Research Grant (2021), and the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) Award (2023). Dr. Juan-Navarro has conducted funded research in Havana and Buenos Aires, was selected to the Fulbright Senior Specialist Roster, and is an elected member of the Academy of Cuban History in Exile.
Eliecer Jiménez Almeida
Content Director and Graphic Designer
Filmmaker and video artist based in Miami, FL. He received a Master’s degree in Journalism from Florida International University, Miami, FL (2021), and a Certificate in Film Studies from The International Film and TV School (EICTV), San Antonio de los Baños, Havana, Cuba (2012). He was also part of the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program, Miami (2016). In 2008, Jiménez Almeida founded ikaik films, a project dedicated to the production and development of experimental films. His work Persona (Person) (2014) won the Best Short Film Award at the Latino and Iberian Film Festival (LIFFY) from Yale University (2016). It was exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), NYC; and at the Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany (2018). Usufructo (Usufruct) was awarded with the EICTV, San Antonio de los Baños, the Special Prize of the 10th Gibara International Non-Budget Film Festival, Cuba (2012). La faz de las aguas (The Face of the Waters) was awarded the Short Film Prize, Handle Climate Change International Film Festival, China (2017). The piece En un paquete de spaguettis (In a Package of Spaguettis) was selected for the International Prize Reina Sofia, Spain (2011). Jiménez Almeida has been invited as Visiting Filmmaker to several academic institutions in the US, including Yale University, Columbia University, New York University (NYU), The City University of New York (CUNY), University of Miami (UM), and Florida International University (FIU). His work has been exhibited in the US, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Russia, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, China, India, Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, El Salvador, and Guatemala. All his films have been produced outside of the main Cuban cinematography industry. He is currently a doctoral student in the Department of Modern Languages at FIU, where he is writing a dissertation on book-to-film adaptations from the Cuban Diaspora.