This article contributes to recovering the lost history of Rosina Prado’s work. Prado was a Spanish-Soviet filmmaker who, along with Sara Gómez, was one of the first women to direct films in Cuba, where she worked for the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) between 1961 and 1968. Drawing on feminist forms of archival and historical research, as well as in-depth personal interviews with Rosina Prado’s relatives and collaborators, we explore Prado’s condition as a migrant mother and antifascist exiled woman filmmaker in Cuba. We also probe the uncertainties surrounding Rosina Prado’s films and their circulation in postrevolutionary Cuba and more recently, in times of digital technological transition. Finally, we consider how these factors have contributed to Rosina Prado’s erasure from film history, leaving her as a little-known filmmaker whose documentaries remain virtually unseen.
Crossing National Borders and Nontheatrical Boundaries: The Film Work of Rosina Prado
Sonia García López is an Associate Professor in the Departamento de Comunicación at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain). She is the author of Ser o no ser: Ernst Lubitsch (2005), Spain Is US: La guerra civil española en el cine del Popular Front (1936–1939) (2013), and El cuerpo y la voz de Margarita Alexandre (2016). Her recent research has been published in the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies and Feminist Media Studies, among others, and has led to film programs for Filmoteca Española and the Mostra Internacional de Films de Dones.
Marina Cavalcanti Tedesco is Professor in the Departamento de Cinema e Vídeo and the Programa de Pós-graduação em Cinema e Audiovisual at Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil. For almost two decades she has been researching women in Latin American cinema, a subject on which she has written articles and published books. In the last few years, she has been awarded a grant by these institutions: Fundación Carolina (Spain), Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ), and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq).
Sonia García López, Marina Cavalcanti Tedesco; Crossing National Borders and Nontheatrical Boundaries: The Film Work of Rosina Prado. Feminist Media Histories 1 April 2025; 11 (2): 25–41. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fmh.2025.11.2.25
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