London’s new Latin American film festival spotlights Cuban classic Death of a Bureaucrat
Ketty Rodriguez is launching London Latino Film Festival with Death of a Bureaucrat, a Cuban classic that sold out a restored BFI Southbank screening in 48 hours.
London Latino Film Festival will run from Oct. 2 to 6 and open with a night at the Barbican, with founder Ketty Rodriguez pictured introducing a screening of the Cuban classic Death of a Bureaucrat. The choice puts Cuban cinema in the launch spotlight even though the festival is broader than one island or one national cinema.
Death of a Bureaucrat is a 1966 Cuban comedy directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and produced by the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industrias Cinematográficos, better known as ICAIC. At 84 minutes, it is one of the most durable titles in the Cuban canon, a sharp satire of bureaucracy in revolutionary Cuba that still lands with audiences far beyond Havana. A recently restored screening at BFI Southbank sold out in 48 hours, a sign that older Cuban titles can still pull strong crowds when they re-enter London’s repertory circuit.
That momentum matters because the London Latino Film Festival is presenting itself as a first edition built around Latin American cinema in the capital, not as a Cuba-only event. Even so, the presence of Death of a Bureaucrat gives the programme a Cuban anchor and shows how island cinema continues to travel through diaspora and specialist programming. The Garden Cinema has already paired the film with Now! and a Q&A featuring Michael Chanan, the filmmaker and Cuban cinema specialist, and Tania Delgado, director of the Havana Film Festival, bringing Cuban voices into the conversation around the screening itself.
For Cuba watchers, that is the important detail. Cuban film is not just appearing as a nostalgic archive title, it is being used as a live point of connection in a wider Latin American circuit that spans London venues, Havana institutions, and audiences who still respond to the island’s oldest satirical hits. The festival’s opening-night slot at the Barbican makes that clear: Cuban cinema is still visible, still marketable, and still part of the conversation whenever London turns its attention to Latin American screens.
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