Tricontinental, Letter to Open in Case Of
(Tricontinentale, lettre à ouvrir au cas où)
May 1966. Michèle Firk, a French film critic and contemporary of Jean-Luc Godard, becomes increasingly political, joining the anti-colonialist movements of the time and attending Havana’s Tricontinental Conference—a first-of-its-kind international meeting of anti-imperialist leaders and activists from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The next year, Firk leaves a letter for her friends “to be opened in case of…” as she prepares to leave France to become a revolutionary fighter in Guatemala.
In this electrifying film essay and political biography, filmmaker Laura Cazador tracks Firk’s fateful journey, from her involvement in Parisian film clubs and Algeria’s National Liberation Front to her associations with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, along with the rise and fall of the movement itself. Blending film clips from “Third Cinema” classics of the period such as The Battle of Algiers, I Am Cuba, and The Hour of the Furnaces, and adopting a filmmaking style reminiscent of her influences, Cazador presents a powerful remembrance and an urgent call to action.
