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José Rodríguez-Soltero

Experimental filmmaker

Jose Rodriguez-Soltero was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico in 1943 and passed away on May 22, 2009 in New York. He was an undergraduate at the University of Puerto Rico and attended San Francisco State College and the Film Institute at the College of New York.

During the 60s, he was the Editor-in-chief of the short-lived film quarterly MEDIUM and later taught film and video seminars in NYC at Cooper Union College of the Arts and Sterling-Manhattan’s Public Video Access Center. He was friend and collaborator of artists and cultural agitators such as Charles Ludlam and Jack Smith.

His popularity in the underground scene rested mainly on the titles Jerovi (1965) and Lupe (1966), although before when he was still a student in Puerto Rico, he had made The Original Sin (1964), and after Lupe filmed Dialogue with Ché (1968). After remaining forgotten for decades, while working as an employee of the social services section of New York City Council, he had resurgence shortly before his death, which occurred in May 2009.

Update: 15 February 2017

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