Che

(France/Spain/USA, 2008; Part One, The Argentine, 129 minutes; Part Two, Guerrilla, 131 minutes)

Argentine doctor Ernesto “Che” Guevara becomes one of the leaders of Fidel Castro's Cuban revolutionary army throughout the long campaign that leads them to take control of Havana; ten years later, he leads Bolivian guerrillas into a crushing defeat at the hands of the country's military dictatorship that costs him his life. Stubbornly admirable but admittedly infuriating biopic that deliberately avoids all of the genre's rules and pitfalls and focuses on the formative and decaying periods of its nominal hero's life. Premiered at the Cannes film festival of 2008 as a single, 260-minute movie, the film was released internationally in two separate parts, with a few countries presenting the full length as a “roadshow version”.

Wild Bunch and Telecinco Cinema present a Laura Bickford/Telecinco Cinema/Morena Films production, with the collaboration of ICAA. Starring (part one) Benicio del Toro; Demián Bichir, Santiago Cabrera, Vladimir Cruz, Pablo Guevara, Jsu García, Elvira Mínguez, Julia Ormond, Jorge Perugorría, Edgar Ramírez, Victor Rasuk, Othello Rensoli, Armando Riesco, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Rodrigo Santoro, Unax Ugalde, Yul Vázquez. Starring (part two) Benicio del Toro; Carlos Bardem, Demián Bichir, Joaquim de Almeida, Carlos Durán, Eduard Fernández, Marc-André Grondin, Óscar Jaenada, Khalil Méndez, Cristian Mercado, Jordi Mollà, Antonio Peredo, Jorge Perugorría, Lou Diamond Phillips, Franka Potente, Othello Rensoli, Armando Riesco, Néstor Rodulfo, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Norman Santiago, Rodrigo Santoro, Mark Umbers, Yul Vázquez. Directed and photographed (under the alias Peter Andrews; Technicolor, Panavision part one only) by Steven Soderbergh; produced by Laura Bickford and Benicio del Toro; screenplay by (part one) Peter Buchman, based on Memoirs of the Cuban Revolutionary War by Ernesto Guevara, (part two) Peter Buchman and Benjamin A. van der Veen, based on The Bolivian Diary by Ernesto Guevara; music by Alberto Iglesias; production designer, Antxón Gómez; New York sequences production designer, Philip Messina; costume designer, Bina Daigeler; New York sequences costume designer, Louise Frogley; film editor, Pablo Zumárraga.