Héctor García Mesa

Héctor García Mesa was the founder and the director of the Cinemateca de Cuba from 1960-1990, and a key spokesperson for Latin American cinema and film archives for three decades. The Cinemateca de Cuba was admitted as a Full Member of FIAF during the 1963 Belgrade Congress, which he attended. He joined the FIAF Executive Committee in 1983, and was Vice-President from 1985. That year, he participated in the creation of the Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Archivos de Imágenes en Movimiento (CLAIM). His life was cut short in September 1990, at the age of 59, after he had been falling seriously ill a few weeks before the 1990 Congress in Habana, a Congress he had exhausted himself organizing. Various tributes were paid to his unique contribution to the field of film archiving in the Journal of Film Preservation on the 20th anniversary of his death, in 2010.

María Eulalia Douglas, "Mis recuerdos de Héctor", Journal of Film Preservation, Issue 83, November 2010, pp.47-48

María Eulalia Douglas, Alicia Gárcia, "Héctor García Mesa (1931-1990)", Journal of Film Preservation, Issue 83, November 2010, pp.49-51

Christian Dimitriu, "Mayuya — Memoria de la Cinemateca de Cuba", Journal of Film Preservation, Issue 83, November 2010, pp.52-73

Robert Daudelin, "In memoriam Hector Garcia-Mesa (1931-1990)", Bulletin FIAF, Issue 41-42, January 1991, pp.24-25