Celebrity Biographies
Juan Carlos Tabio
He co-directed “Strawberry and Chocolate” and “Guantanamera”, the two biggest hits of Cuban cinema in recent decades. Film director Juan Carlos Tabío died in Havana at the age of 78, on January 18, 20211, according to the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC). The work of Tabío (1943), who won the National Film Award in 2014, “is part of the transcendent history of Cuban cinema,” the ICAIC highlighted on its Twitter account.
Born in the Cuban capital in 1943, Juan Carlos Tabío ‘s parents wanted him to dedicate himself to politics, to guarantee a future. But in 1961 he began working at the ICAIC as a production assistant, and later became an assistant director. He was poisoned by the cinema, and he did not want to dedicate himself to any other profession.
With his first fiction feature film, the comedy Se permuta (1985), he managed to point out the problems of the Cuban regime. Together with Tomás Gutiérrez Alea , one of the great filmmakers in the country, he shot Fresa y chocolate (1993, nominated for an Oscar for best foreign language film, and Guantanamera , 1995.
His following films did not have as much impact, but Plaff (1988), Waiting List (2000) and The Horn of Plenty (2009), achieved positive reviews. For many years, he combined his work as a filmmaker with his teaching work as a script and directing professor at the San Antonio de los Baños International Film and Television School.
In 2011, he worked on the compilation of short fragments Siete días en La Habana , together with the Puerto Rican actor Benicio del Toro , the Spanish director Julio Medem , the Frenchman Laurent Cantet , and others. He has not transcended his private life.