Miguel Coyula

Maverick filmmaker who has been working outside of the mainstream (both commercial and art-house) many times as a one man crew since he made his first short at age 17 with an old VHS camcorder. This short granted him admission at the International Film School of San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba (EICTV). Since then he has gathered many awards in his country with cutting edge shorts films such as: Bailar sobre agujas (1999), Nice Going (1999), and Clase z tropical (2000) among others. In 2001, he was given a scholarship to the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in New York, where Coyula made his first feature: Red Cockroaches (2003) for less than $2000 over a two year period, which has won 20 awards at International film festivals and was hailed by Variety as "A triumph of technology in the hands of a visionary with know-how..." Coyula has funded his work through grants and private investors who serve as excecutive and associate producers of his films. His last film is Memorias del desarrollo (2010), follow up to the Cuban classic Memories of Underdevelopment (1968), based on the follow up novel by Cuban writer Edmundo Desnoes, also author of the original. The film gathered 20 awards and was chosen as the Best Cuban Film of the year by the International Film Guide. In 2009 Coyula was awarded a John Simon Guggenehim Fellowship. Corazón azul (2021) was filmed clandestine over a decade until its premiere at the Moscow International Film Festival in 2021. He has presented his work and given talks in several American universities over the years, including Yale, Princeton, Tulane, Emerson, Cornell UW, UM, and Rice, among others. In 2013 his sci-fi novel "Mar Rojo, Mal Azul" was published by La Pereza Ediciones. His work is banned in Cuba.