Iré a Santiago

“Mulatto is a state of mind,” says the voice-over in Iré a Santiago (I’m going to Santiago). This dynamic black and white film made five years after the Cuban revolution captures that state of mind in scenes from everyday life in the port city of Santiago de Cuba. The narrow streets pulse with activity, with street vendors touting pineapples, people flirting on café terraces, a funeral taking place, and carnival celebrations.

The voice-over, meanwhile, brings us the history of the city. Columbus set foot here in 1492, and it was in Santiago that Hernán Cortés planned his conquest of Mexico. When French plantation holders fled to Cuba with the people they had enslaved following the Haitian revolution in 1791, it led to a significant rise in the Black population in Santiago.

Iré a Santiago presents the influence of them and the mulattos on life in the city. The film is a celebration, an ode to this vibrant, pluralistic city, where the vitality of the present – as Gómez captured it in 1964 – overcame the colonial past.

Iré a Santiago was digitally restored by Vulnerable Media Lab as part of the Sara Gómez Project.