This classic film satirises how red tape in the revolution affects the everyday lives of its people. As a badge of honour, a model worker is buried with his labour card in his pocket. But his widow needs it to claim the benefits she is entitled to. The film traces the family’s often hilarious Kafka-esque efforts to recover the precious document in the new society where everyone is treated as equals. But should that extend to the dead? Alea, known as the father of Cuban cinema, presents a radical new vision of a universal theme containing notes of many cinematic icons from Chaplin and Laurel & Hardy, to Brecht, Eisenstein and Buñuel.
La Muerte de un Burocrata / The Death of a Bureaucrat| Tomás Gutiérrez Alea| Cuba 1966, ICAIC | 85m | Spanish with English subtitles | PG
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CAST Salvador Wood, Silvia Planas, Manuel Estanillo, Gaspar de Santelices.
SCREEN CUBA, 15-28 March 2026, LONDON & BEYOND 