Past Film/Video | Classics

The Survivors

(Los sobrevivientes, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, 1979)

New Restoration

An older man kisses a younger woman on the forehead. She has brown hair and is looking down wearing a yellow formal dress.

The Survivors is a darkly comic allegory that leaves no easy answers.

Gutiérrez Alea’s remorseless study of the delusions of class was dedicated to cinematic great Luis Buñuel. The Survivors follows the Orozco clan, a bourgeois family living in the Cuban countryside who decide to seal their mansion off from the world and the rising 1959 revolution. They’ve stockpiled food and hope to pass the time until the new government is overthrown. But as the years pass, the family begins to regress through increasingly primitive forms of social order: capitalism and feudalism, slavery and savagery—and worse. In Spanish with English subtitles. (130 mins., 4K DCP)

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The Survivors, courtesy of Cohen Film Collection.

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More about the filmmaker

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Tomás Gutiérrez Alea (1928–1996) wrote and directed more than 20 features, documentaries, and short films throughout his life. Steeped in film history during his studies at Rome’s Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, Gutiérrez Alea pays homage in his films to the greats who inspired him, including Charlie Chaplin and Luis Buñuel. Following the Cuban revolution in 1959, and with the support of the Castro regime, he and a group of other young filmmakers founded the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC). The collective advocated for film as an art form and as the best method of disseminating revolutionary ideals to the masses. Ever dedicated to the revolution, his films nonetheless deftly critique the social, economic, and political realities of life in Cuba. 

Restored by the Academy Film Archive in association with Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industrias Cinematográficos.

Copromotional support provided by Ohio State's Center for Latin American Studies.

FILM/VIDEO PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY 
National Endowment for the Arts 
Ohio Humanities

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY 
Rohauer Collection Foundation

WEXNER CENTER PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY 
Ohio Department of Development
Greater Columbus Arts Council
The Wexner Family 
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Ohio Arts Council, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts 
CampusParc 
Ohio State’s Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme 
The Columbus Foundation
Axium Packaging 
Nationwide Foundation 
Vorys, Sater, Seymour, and Pease

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY 
Mike and Paige Crane 
Nancy Kramer 
Ohio State Energy Partners 
Ohio History Fund/Ohio History Connection 
Larry and Donna James 
David Crane and Elizabeth Dang 
Bruce and Joy Soll 
Rebecca Perry Damsen and Ben Towle 
Jones Day 
Alex and Renée Shumate

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Past Film/Video

The Survivors