opinion
RIDING GIANTS
The new documentary “Havana Libre” follows Cuban surf pioneers Yaya Guerrero and Frank Gonzales Guerra, who are fighting to make surfing not only legal but popular in Cuba.
Corey McLean is a documentary film director, musician, and artist currently based out of Los Angeles. His pathway to becoming a filmmaker has been an unexpected journey dictated by story rather than by design. Growing up on the coast of Maine, McLean, Dunham, and Brown all started pointing cameras around the age of 9, making films about skiing and skateboarding to avoid boredom in the woods. Now, over two decades later, the lifelong friends are still chasing more meaningful stories around the world. Having shot amidst the Ebola crisis in Liberia to the streets of Argentina, to the shores of Cuba, McLean has developed a knack for finding the endearing qualities of the human spirit in the face of hardship. He has had short form work featured at Mountain Film Festival, Camden International Film Festival, and by the WSL, as well as writing in Good Magazine, The Inertia, The Adventure Journal, and The Surfer’s Journal. His book, The Cuba Unknown, was published in 2017. Havana Libré is his first feature film.