This collaboration led to the founding of the original Cinemateca de Cuba, officially established as an institution in 1948 by Herman Puig and Ricardo Vigón.
Puig, along with Carlos Franqui, future ICAIC cameraman Ramón F. Suárez, and writers Edmundo Desnoes and Guillermo Cabrera Infante (author of Tres tristes tigres), produced several short films.
In Madrid, he began experimenting with male nudes but was arrested in an alleged drug case and charged as a pornographer under the socialist government’s climate.
[5] In the film, Puig expresses his frustration at being associated with pornography and homosexuality simply for wanting to photograph male bodies as art, rather than focusing on women.
Puig recently addressed issues of beauty, art, and expression restrictions in Cuba during a conference with author Zoé Valdés in Palma de Mallorca.