8 /10 1 Votes
Directed by Eduardo Montes-Bradley Music by Various Initial release November 2007 Screenplay Eduardo Montes-Bradley Executive producer Eduardo Montes-Bradley | 4/5 Amazon Produced by Soledad Liendo Edited by Eduardo Montes-Bradley Director Eduardo Montes-Bradley Producer Eduardo Montes-Bradley | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Starring Alberto Granado, Alberto Castellanos, Enrique Oltuski, Argudín Mendoza, Enrique “Pombo” Villegas Distributed by Alexander Street Press, Heritage Film Project. Cast Che Guevara, Alberto Granado Similar Chevolution, The Motorcycle Diaries, Che!, Cuba - an African Odyssey, Rule of Three | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Che Rise and Fall is a documentary film created by Eduardo Montes-Bradley. The film was entirely shot in Cuba at the time Che Guevara’s remains were airlifted from Bolivia to Santa Clara the final resting place. The documentary features the testimonies of Guevara’s comrades-in-arms in Sierra Maestra, Congo and Bolivia, also with Alberto Granado with whom Guevara rode a motorcycle from Argentina on a trip that will end, tragically, sixteen years later in the jungles of Bolivia, an experience that was brought to the big screen on The Motorcycle Diaries. Che Rise and Fall begins with an account of Guevara's death in Bolivia in 1967, and fittingly ends with footage of the return of his remains for internment in a monument in Santa Clara's Revolution Square some 30 years later.
Che Rise and Fall explores an unorthodox approach to the myth of Che as a revolutionary icon. According to Lourdes Vázquez from Rutgers University Library, the film documents Che’s frustrated experience for the period spent fighting a in Congo's Revolutionary War as well as his sense of failure. The documentary includes original archival footage, original photographs taken by Ernesto Guevara in Mexico, and images from the ceremony of Che’s remains being brought to Santa Clara, originally included on the documentary "Che, a man of this world" (1998) directed by Marcelo Schapces.
Che: Rise and Fall was premiered on National Geographic Channel on June 14, 2007 and has been released on DVD in the USA, Germany, United Kingdom, Portugal, and Spain.
Festivals and Academic Projection
Che: Rise and Fall has been invited to participate at the 20èmes Rencontres Cinémas d'Amérique Latine de Toulouse, in France. The documentary is also listed by WorldCat as available at some fifty university and public libraries in the United States including the University of Virginia, National Defense University Library, Defense Intelligence Agency, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Bucknell University, University of Pennsylvania Libraries,The College of New Jersey, Morehead State University, Ohio State University Libraries, Emory University, Dartmouth College Library, Université du Québec à Montréal, and Tulane University.