Biography

Maverick filmmaker who has been working outside of the mainstream (both commercial and art-house) many times as a one-man crew since he made his first short at age 17 with an old VHS camcorder. This short granted him admission at the International Film School of San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba (EICTV). He gathered several awards in his country with experimental shorts films such as: Bailar sobre agujas (1999), Nice Going (1999), and Clase z tropical (2000) among others.

In 2001, he was given a scholarship to the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in New York, where Coyula made his first feature: Red Cockroaches (2003) for less than $2000 over a two-year period, which has won 20 awards at International film festivals and was hailed by Variety as "A triumph of technology in the hands of a visionary with know-how..." Coyula has usually funded his work through grants and private investors who serve as excecutive and associate producers of his films. In 2010, the Sundance Film Festival premiered his film Memorias del desarrollo (2010), follow up to the Cuban classic Memories of Underdevelopment (1968), based on the follow up novel by Cuban writer Edmundo Desnoes, also author of the original. The film gathered 20 awards and was chosen as the Best Cuban Film of the year by the International Film Guide. In 2009 Coyula was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. His next project was the documentary Nadie (2017) centered around dissident Cuban poet Rafael Alcides and his relationship with the Cuban revolution. Corazón azul (2021) was filmed underground over a decade, until its premiere at the Moscow International Film Festival in 2021. Subsequently the film won the HFPA award at the Guadalajara Film Festival. In 2024 his documentary Crónicas del absurdo (2024) won the Best Film award at the International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam (IDFA).

He has presented his work and given talks in several universities over the years, including Yale, Princeton, Tulane, Emerson, Cornell, UW, UM, and Rice, among others. He has also published the novels "Mar Rojo, Mal Azul" in 2013, "La Isla Vertical" in 2022, and the non-fiction book "Matar el Realismo". His work is banned in Cuba.
- IMDb mini biography by: Ron Blair

His films are often set on an alternative reality, with futuristic and surreal elements

Cryptic storylines involving alienated characters

Strong, colorful compositions and sharp editing

In his narrative films he never cuts back to a previously used shot. Every cut is to a different camera setup.

His thesis film, Buena Onda (1999), was considered by a teacher one of the worse films in the history of the school. One year after a prolific round of Cuban and US Film Festivals, the same film won him a scholarship to study for 1 year at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in New York.

I think of the little pieces as a self contained film. Then, when the small pieces finds its shape; I start treating them as a whole of their own.

I cannot deal with realism. If I wanted realism, I'd go and see a documentary. I feel compelled to build the reality the way I want to see it.

You can't buy talent with technology.