Cuba and the Cameraman

In 1975, after a few years of using the recent development of video camera technology to engage in investigative journalism that called attention to some of the problems that plagued New York City, CUBA AND THE CAMERAMAN filmmaker Jon Alpert set his sights on Cuba. He wanted to see how socialism was functioning under Fidel Castro 15 years after the Cuban Revolution. What transpired over the course of several visits from 1975 through 2016 was a documentation of how the tumultuous changes the island nation experienced during these decades affected Cuban society and the individuals Alpert befriended during these visits. From the relatively prosperous 1970s to the years of struggle and food shortages in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union (who gave Cuba billions of dollars in subsidies over the years), to the more recent era of a loosening of restrictions on free enterprise, the emergence of a tourism and black market economy, and the death of Fidel Castro, Cuba and the Cameraman shows, as it happened, what changed in Cuba during this time.