The Life of Juanita Castro

66 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglish

The Life of Juanita Castro is a 1965 American underground film directed by Andy Warhol, filmed in March 1965.

Plot

A playwright (Ronald Tavel) taunts a number of actresses into improvising a play on Fidel Castro and his family, at a time when the revolution was bringing back disquieting stories of executions and imprisonments and, particularly, virulent hatred and torture of homosexuals in Cuba.

Several of the play's male characters (Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, and Che Guevara) are played by women. The actresses face a camera they believe is filming them, while in fact they are being filmed by another camera placed off to one side. At times they are directed by Tavel to perform pointless acts in unison. According to reviewer Tom Vick, the film "rewrites history as a high-camp farce," poking fun at machismo and totalitarianism.^[1]

Cast

• Ronald Tavel as on-screen director
• Marie Menken as Juanita Castro
• Mercedes Ospina as Fidel Castro
• Elektrah (Lobel) as Raul Castro
• Aniram Anipso as Che Guevara
• and as members of the Castro family: Harvey Tavel, Waldo Diaz-Balart, Ultra Violet, Jinny Bern, Amanda Sherrill, Bonny Gaer, Isadora Rose, Elizabeth Staal, and Carol Lobravico

See also

• List of American films of 1965
• Andy Warhol filmography

References

External links

• The Life of Juanita Castro at IMDb