Memories of Overdevelopment (2011)

Memories of Overdevelopment (Spanish: Memorias del Desarrollo) is a 2010 Cuban-American film. Written and directed by Miguel Coyula, the story is based on a novel by Edmundo Desnoes, also the author of the 1968 classic Memories of Underdevelopment. This independent film was produced by David Leitner and features Cuban actor Ron Blair as the lead character. It is the first post-1959 Cuban-American co-production, with narrative scenes filmed both in Cuba and the United States. After its world premiere at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, it garnered several awards and honors. The International Film Guide omitted the United States' involvement in the production, and described it as one of the best films Cuba has produced.

Plot

Sergio Garcet is an intellectual who abandons the Cuban Revolution and 'underdevelopment' behind only to find himself at odds with the ambiguities of his new life in the 'developed' world.

Highly episodical, the film consists of flashbacks, daydreams, and hallucinations comprising live-action, animation, and newsreel footage assembled to suggest the way personal memory works, subjectively and emotionally.

Production

Production of “Memorias del Desarrollo” took five years, starting in 2005 and completed in 2010, with locations in five countries. According to director Miguel Coyula, his first draft of the screenplay was a faithful adaptation of Edmundo Desnoes' novel. But as he began filming and editing simultaneously, he became aware of new possibilities, which would radically alter the narrative structure of the original novel as well as its characters. The film did not follow the traditional chronology of writing, shooting and editing. This required a new approach where pre-production, production, and postproduction, no longer needed to exist as distinct elements but rather as an integral interactive seamless process. This new way of working was not meant as a shortcut, but rather as a way of revealing new narrative layers of the work as it evolved to create the director’s vision.

Coyula would take advantage of everything around him that he thought would add to the film, heavily manipulating images digitally, into the film’s final highly fragmented narrative. For example, the scenes with the 9/11 footage, which the director had recorded years before; the Paris, London and Tokyo scenes, which were shot while Coyula was travelling invited to film festivals presenting his film Red Cockroaches. Most of the various location shoots were done without permits, through favors from friends, and with a minimal crew consisting mostly of director Miguel Coyula, producer David W. Leitner and lead actor Ron Blair, easily adapting at a moment’s notice and without the constraints of a rigid schedule. The film's most decisive work however took place in the editing room. In several visual presentations Coyula stated that no shot in the film escaped digital manipulation of some kind, which included, green screen, compositing in recreating sets, double exposures, replacing backgrounds, changing lighting, weather conditions, performing digital art direction, and actors shot in different countries performing together on screen.

Producer David Leitner initially hoped to raise 2 million dollars for the project. But after realizing there was no interest from film production companies neither in North or South America, they reverted to a strategy closer to Coyula's first feature, Red Cockroaches. The film was funded by executive producers Steve Pieczenik, and Suzana Dejkanovic, associate producers Juan Martinez, and Michael Ferris Gibson as well as the Guggenheim Fellowship Coyula was awarded in 2009 for this project. While working on a low budget delayed completion by five years, it also allowed Coyula to have total creative control of the film.

Reception

Memories of Overdevelopment was the subject of considerable critical discussion, with critics highlighting its formal experimentation, narrative ambition, and exploration of exile, memory, and identity in the context of contemporary Cuba. At the film's premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, programmer Shari Frilot described it in Filmmaker Magazine as “one of those films that was simply born from the head of Zeus, like fully formed.”

An initial negative review by Variety’s Robert Koehler called it “an unfortunate follow up to Tomas Gutierrez Alea’s masterpiece.” Subsequently James Greenberg from Hollywood Reporter considered it “Thoughtful and cinematically bold... an affecting portrait of modern man becoming more and more isolated from a world he helped to create.” Bérénice Reynaud, writing for ''Senses of Cinema'', compared the film with ''Memories of Underdevelopment'' and wrote that “Coyula raises the stakes through an over-composition of the image and a saturation of colors, creating a complex kaleidoscope that, in turn, determines the editing of the sequences in a kinetic and non-linear manner.” She also observed that “the structure blurs the boundaries between real events, false memories, projections, irritation with American popular culture, political anger, digressions and resentments.” According to Reynaud, these visual strategies further “destabilize” the protagonist, creating “a palpable tension between the film and Desnoes's text.” Film historial Michael Chanan described the film as “a dazzling and disconcerting work of great bravado.” He also noted that, although at times the film appeared “overwhelmed by its own excess,” it represented “a paradigm for a new digital cinema that owes nothing to any orthodoxy.” Robin Menken, writing for ''Cinema Without Borders'', described the film as one that "weaves past and present, personal and historic events in a cascade of images that cut to the heart of modern alienation.

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo's review at Diario de Cuba summarized the film as “A memorable moment in the Cuban Arts”. In contrast, Cuban critic Rolando Pérez Betancourt, writing in Granma, acknowledged the film's formal ambition but expressed reservations about the protagonist's perspective on the Cuban Revolution, writing “when analyzing Che he also does so from the simplification disseminated by a certain kind of propaganda: the guerrilla struggle was a failure and the hero ended up becoming a commodity on T-shirts. But that is the new Sergio, and that is this film, well conceived in its formal presentation, which I by no means see as having a propagandistic intention, but rather as an attempt to problematize ideas and conflicts through art, and not only those concerning Cuba.” Writing in the journal Surco Sur, critic Dean Luis Reyes argued that the film’s protagonist “assumes his definitive schizoid position, his dissociation from reality.” Reyes argued that Sergio “wants something authentic, something that will last, that is not marked by a contextual call. His anguish is that of the individual who seeks to be more than a person or a subject.”

In a retrospective assessment published in 2024, Cuban essayist Luis Álvarez Álvarez wrote that the film “dares to embrace the most personal, frank, and direct language in the entire history of Cuban cinema.

Honors

Best Cuban Film of 2010 by the International Film Guide.

Best Film of 2010 by Cinema Without Borders

In 2016 La Habana.com chose it among the “Must see Cuban films"

Awards

Audience Award for Best Foreign Feature Film, Arraial CineFest, Brazil, 2012

Best Narrative Feature, Extreme World Cinema Festival San Sebastián de Veracruz, Mexico, 2012

Best Director, Latin American Territory, Málaga Film Festival, Spain, 2011

Cine Latino Award, Washington DC Independent Film Festival, USA, 2011

Special Jury Award, Encuentro Nacional de Video, Cuba, 2011

Special Jury Award, El Almacén de la Imagen, Cuba, 2011

FIPRESCI Award, Caracol Awards, Cuba, 2011

Mention, Caracol Awards, Cuba, 2011

UNEAC Award, Encuentro Nacional de Video, Cuba, 2011

Best Film, Muestra Joven ICAIC, Cuba, 2011

Best Original Music, Muestra Joven ICAIC, Cuba, 2011

FIPRESCI Award, Muestra Joven ICAIC, Cuba, 2011

SIGNIS Award, Muestra Joven ICAIC, Cuba, 2011

Editora Musical Award, Muestra Joven ICAIC, Cuba, 2011

Special Distinction, Latin ACE Awards, USA, 2011

Most Innovative, Cero Latitud Film Festival, Ecuador, 2010

Best Narrative Feature, Dallas Video Fest, USA, 2010

Best Feature, New Media Film Festival, USA, 2010

Special Mention, Cine Las Americas International Film Festival, USA, 2010

Best Film, Havana Film Festival New York, USA, 2010

See also

Cinema of Cuba

List of films shot over three or more years

References

External links

Memories of Overdevelopment at IMDb

"Best Cuban Films of 2010" "IFG - Cuba International Film Guide 2010 | PDF | Cuba | Unrest" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-10-06. Retrieved 2018-01-25.[1]" (201 KB). International Film Guide. Abu Dhabi Film Commission.

Greenberg, James (14 October 2010) "Memories of Overdevelopmen—Film Review", The Hollywood Reporter - review

Menken, Robin (23 January 2011) "Best Film of 2010, according to CWB's critic, Robin Menken" Cinema Without Borders - review

Reynaud, Bérénice (11 July 2010) "The Image and its Discontent". Senses of Cinema, Issue 55. - review