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?

As part of our mini-season, 'Memories of Titón', supported by Screen Cuba and with introduction from Libertad Gills.

If you want to further explore the work of Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, please book onto our special double bill of two of his restored films: The Twelve Chairs (1962) and The Last Supper (1976) as part of an extended presentation in our Hyde Park Film School strand on Sunday 19 April. Tickets and information here.

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Libertad Gills is a filmmaker, film critic, and now Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Leeds. She researches experimental film practices, archival cinema, and videographic criticism. Libertad has contributed as programmer for Berlin Critics Week, Emami Art Experimental Film Festival, Fresh Festival (Switzerland), and Colombia’s National Cinemateca, and delivered a keynote on film collectives for Winterthur International Short Film Festival. She has published a book of interviews with film critics from Latin America (La crítica es una escuela, 2022) and another one on analogue and experimental film practices in Guayaquil, Ecuador (Guayaquil en ruinas, 2023). The 2025 Marienbad International Film Festival dedicated a programme to her videographic work titled “Echoes and Revolutions”.