Juan Carlos Tabío (3 September 1943 – 18 January 2021) was a Cuban film director and screenwriter. His film Strawberry and Chocolate (1994), which he co-directed with Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, won a Silver Bear - Special Jury Prize at the 44th Berlin International Film Festival. He was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He collaborated with director and close friend Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and actors Jorge Perugorría, Vladimir Cruz and Mirta Ibarra in several films.
His 2000 film, The Waiting List (Lista de Espera), was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.
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Biography
Juan Carlos Tabío was born in 1943 in Havana, Cuba. Although his illustrious filmmaking career spanned nearly three decades, his initial involvement in the genre came as an accident. When he was young, his parents prepared him for a career in politics. It was not until a family friend who worked for the national cinemagraphic society invited him to work on a film that Tabío gave filmmaking a thought as a career.
Juan Carlos Tabío began working in 1961 at the ICAIC (Cuban Institute of Art and Cinematographic Industry) as a production assistant and then later as an assistant director.
Between 1963 and 1980, he produced more than 30 documentaries. His first feature film (Se Swap) was released in 1983. Tabío taught screenwriting and filmmaking at the International School of Film and Television of San Antonio de los Baños between 1989 and 1990.
