One Way or Another

The only feature from the radical Afro-Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez—who also worked as an assistant director with Agnès Varda and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea before her untimely death at age thirty-one—is an extraordinary portrait of post-revolution Cuba. Blending invaluable documentary footage with a loose narrative about the budding relationship between an outspoken schoolteacher (Yolanda Cuellar) and a young worker (Mario Balmaseda) facing a moral crisis, One Way or Another depicts revolution as an ongoing process that takes place at the level of community—among friends, lovers, coworkers, teachers, students, and parents, all of whom must work together to negotiate a new social order. Above all, Gómez offers a trenchant intersectional critique of the lingering sexism and machismo that, she argues, must be cleared away in order to create a truly just society.