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Gebhard, Glenn

English

Loyola Marymount University

Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law SchoolDigital Commons at Loyola MarymountUniversity and Loyola Law SchoolFaculty Pub Night William H. Hannon LibraryFall 9-13-2016Cuba: The Forgotten RevolutionGlenn GebhardLoyola Marymount UniversityFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/facultypubnightPart of the Latin American History CommonsThis Book is brought to you for free and open access by the William H. Hannon Library at Digital Commons @ Loyola Marymount University andLoyola Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Pub Night by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Loyola MarymountUniversity and Loyola Law School. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@lmu.edu.Recommended CitationGebhard, Glenn, "Cuba: The Forgotten Revolution" (2016). Faculty Pub Night. 24.http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/facultypubnight/24Faculty Pub Night – Fall 2016 Date: September 13, 2016 Speaker: Glenn Gebhard         About the Author Professor Glenn Gebhard is a professor at Loyola Marymount University’s School of Film and Television in Los Angeles, California. He is also an award winning film producer as well as a director of documentaries and narrative films.  Gebhard’s recent work includes a series of four documentaries called "Cuba at a Crossroads”, and feature documentaries such as “Cuba: A Lifetime of Passion” with HD net for PBS, “Crossing Borders/A Cuban Returns” (PBS), and "Dreaming a New Cuba" (The Showtime Channel). Gebhard’s latest documentaries are “Cuba: The Forgotten Revolution” (American Public Television for PBS nationwide), and “Sarah Cecile” a documentary about international child abduction made for P.A.C.T., an NGO based in London. About the Author’s Work Cuba: The Forgotten Revolution tells the virtually unknown story of Cuban revolutionaries Frank Pais and Juan Antonio Echeverria – a school teacher and architecture student, respectively - whose names seldom appear alongside their more famous contemporaries, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Through archival stock footage and exclusive interviews with Cuban revolution participants and observers, family members of the men, Americans who fought alongside Castro and Guevara, and a former CIA agent, we learn how these young men, who worked largely independently from each other, played critical roles in the eventual overthrow of dictator Fulgencio Batista y Zaldíva. Scholar Lillian Guerra, of Yale and Florida State University, explains: "It is as if we told the tale of the American Revolution as solely Washington's story, leaving out Franklin, Jefferson, Adams and others." New scholarship and recently accessed footage challenge the prevailing view – in part manufactured and perpetuated by Che Guevara – that Castro's army of 200 guerillas single-handedly defeated tens of thousands of Batista's professional soldiers and liberated the people of Cuba. In actuality, Pais and Echeverria's city-based insurgencies in Santiago and Havana held the key to generating popular support for resistance and undermining the authority of Batista and his secret police. Both Pais and Echeverria rivaled Castro in popularity and power during the height of the Revolution yet neither man lived to see the movement succeed. A close associate reportedly gunned down Pais in the street; Echeverria died in a daring raid on the palace. The film highlights the complexities inherent in revolutions and examines the shaping (and reshaping) of the final historical record. After Castro assumed power in 1959, he harnessed the power of the emerging medium of television to advance a narrative that effectively expunged Pais and Echeverria – and others responsible for the outcome – from Cuban history. 

Cuba: The Forgotten Revolution

https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1048&amp;context=facultypubnight

Cuba: The Forgotten Revolution

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