GLORIA ROLANDO : MEMORY, LIBERATION, AND

The first comprehensive exploration of the life, work, and legacy of internationally acclaimed Afro-Cuban filmmaker Gloria Rolando.

For over three decades, Gloria Rolando has created films that challenge the erasure of Black history in Cuba and the Americas more broadly. Working independently through her production company Imágenes del Caribe as well as with the Cuban National Film Institute, ICAIC, Rolando has illuminated hidden histories, interrogated narratives of raceless nationalism and mestizaje, and centered the lived experiences of Afro-descendant communities as well as diasporic connections. Gloria Rolando brings together scholars, artists, and activists from Cuba, Latin America, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom to explore Rolando’s profound impact. Blending personal essays, interviews, film analyses, and archival images, the volume uncovers the power of visual storytelling to honor memory and inspire liberation.

Andrea J. Queeley is Associate Professor of Anthropology and African and African Diaspora Studies at Florida International University. She is the author of Rescuing Our Roots: The African Anglo-Caribbean Diaspora in Contemporary Cuba. Devyn Spence Benson is Associate Professor of History and African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky. She is the author of Antiracism in Cuba: The Unfinished Revolution and editor, with Daisy Rubiera Castillo and Inés María Martiatu Terry, of the English version of Afrocubanas: History, Thought, and Cultural Practices. Yesenia Fernández Selier was a performer, artist, and doctoral candidate working on a dissertation entitled “Representing and Performing Afro Latino: The Cultural Production of Race in the Spanish Caribbean, 1812–1950.”