Overview

“In the absence of the recovery of films by Hugo Mateo, Max Pou or Eduardo Palmer, we can access Mattéi's film. Before becoming a filmmaker, he was a French writer and journalist who opposed the Algerian War and, from then on, began to accompany the African and Latin American struggles. He was a friend of Sartre, Castro and of the Dominican guerrilla members of the 14th of June Movement. In May 1966, at the request of his Dominican friends, Mattéi travelled to Santo Domingo to film for the first time, while elections were being held under the control of US troops. "It was politics that made us discover cinema as a means of information and agitation," he wrote. The film accompanies and depicts the fraudulent elections that gave victory to Joaquín Balaguer, Trujillo's heir, with the support of the United States, over Juan Bosch”. - Diego Cepeda