Nestor Almendros - CUBAN DIASPORA FILM ARCHIVE

© Nestor Almendros

Nestor Almendros (Barcelona, 1930-New York City, 1992) is one of the highest appraised contemporary cinematographers. He was born in Spain but moved to Cuba by age 18 to join his exiled anti-Franco father. In Havana, he founded a cineclub and wrote film reviews. Then, he went on to study in Rome at the Centro Sperimentale. He directed six shorts in Cuba and two in New York. After the 1959 Cuban revolution, he returned and made several documentaries for the Castro-regime. But after two of his shorts (Gente en la playa [1960] and La Tumba Francesca) had been banned, he moved to Paris. There he became the favourite cameraman of Éric Rohmer and François Truffaut. In 1978, he started his impressive Hollywood-career. In his later years, he co-directed two documentaries about the human rights situation in Cuba: Mauvaise conduite (Improper Conduct, 1984) (about the persecution of gay people) and Nadie escuchaba (1987). He shot several prestigious commercials for Giorgio Armani and Calvin Klein. Nestor Almendros died of cancer.

Source: Chris Abbenhuis (IMDb)

Filmography

1950: Una confusión cotidiana (Short)

1960: Escuelas rurales (Documentary)

1960: Ritmo de Cuba (Documentary short)

1960: Gente en la playa (Documentary short)

1961: La tumba francesa (Documentary short)

1967: La Journée d’un journaliste (Documentary short)

1968: Retour d’Henri Langlois à Paris (Documentary short)

1984: Mauvaise conduite (Documentary co-directed with Orlando Jiménez Leal)

1987: Nadie escuchaba (Documentary co-directed with Jorge Ulla)

Nominations and Awards