© Fausto Canel

Born in Havana in 1939, Fausto Canel was a film critic for the magazine Cine Guía, as well as for the newspaper Revolución. His articles were also published in Positif and Cinema 60. He was an assistant director, and a director linked to ICAIC since the years of its foundation. He continued his work in France, Spain, and the USA. He currently resides in Miami, where he works for Martí radio and television.

Some of his Cuban films won awards at international film festivals. His feature film Desarraigo won the Special Jury Prize at the San Sebastian Film Festival in 1965 and has become a benchmark for Cuban film historians.

Disappointed by the growing totalitarianism of the Castro regime, Canel left Cuba in 1968 and settled in Paris, France, where for 9 years he directed documentaries for French television. He also directed the short Journal de Madrid, a meditation on a trip to General Franco’s Spain, and A la dérive, a 30-minute story that marked his return to feature film.

Once democracy returned to Spain, he moved to Madrid and made Espera, a short film that represented the country at the Valladolid Human Rights Film Festival. He also wrote and directed the feature film Power Game, an Anglo-Spanish co-production.

In the United States, he directed Minefield, a documentary feature film about the return of democracy to the Southern Cone of South America.

In 1992 he published Ni tiempo para pedir auxilio, an autobiographical novel. Dire Straits by Fausto Canel, a film in words, was published in 2013 and Sin Pedir Permiso: Cuba, el cine y una época, en tiempos difíciles, a memoir, in 2015. Revolver, his latest book, came out in 2018.

Filmography

1960: El tomate (Short)

1960: Carnaval (Short)

1960: Cooperativas agropecuarias (Short)

1960: Torrens (Short)

1961: Cómo nace un periódico (Short)

1962: Hemingway (Short)

1963: Pesca (Short)

1964: El final (Short)

1964: Desarraigo (Feature)

1966: Papeles son papeles (Feature)

1969: Patchwork (Short)

1975: Transcontinental a la dérive (Medium length)

1979: Espera (Short)

1983: Juego de Poder (Feature)

1987: Campo minado (Feature)

Nominations and Awards

Desarraigo

  • Special Jury Award, San Sebastián International Film Festival, Spain, 1965

Hemingway

  • First Prize (ex aequo with Alberto Roldán’s Carnaval Socialista), Festival Internacional de Cine Latinoamericano, Sestri Levante, Italy, 1962

Juego de Poder

  • Nominated to Best Film, Mystfest, Cattolica, Italy, 1983
© Fausto Canel