Gómez was a revolutionary filmmaker, concerned with representing the Afro-Cuban community, women's issues, and the treatment of the marginalized sectors of society.

"Exposing the roots of the world that had to be left behind and demanding the arrival of the future: her mission was to allow these communities to understand the process of what was happening in their lives, their needs, and possible departures.

"[3] Trained as a musician and ethnographer, Sara Gómez came from the folkloric Havana neighborhood of Guanabacoa – traditionally viewed as one of the epicenters of Afro-Cuban popular culture, as well as a marginal sector of Cuba that has many issues such as racism and gender inequality which was depicted later on in her films.

[5] "Raised by her paternal grandmother and four aunts, she grew up surrounded by Afro-Cuban professionals, including family members who played in the Havana Philharmonic Orchestra, and attended dances at black recreational societies like the Porvenir and El Club Progreso (The Progressive Club), which inspired her studies at the Conservatory of Music in Havana.

[2] Gómez explored journalism by writing for the youth magazine Mella and for the Communist Party newspaper Noticias de Hoy (News of Today) – before taking a position at the newly formed Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC).

Cuban directors see documentaries as an important training ground because it forces them to focus on the material reality of Cuba, consequently, emphasizing filmmaking as an expression or tool of the culture.

[1] Sara Gómez's last film, the hybrid narrative/documentary De cierta manera, (translated for US audiences as One Way or Another) has been hailed as the "first movie to truly explore conflicting threads of racial and gender identity within a revolutionary context.

This film shifts between a documentary style that analyzes the revolution and a fictitious love story that challenges the attitudes around race, social class and gender in Cuban culture.Sara Gomez chooses both professional actors and nonprofessional actors to represent the issues of story and in real life: the conflict between Cuba marginal population's life and the Revolution.

"[11] Gómez died before the film could be completed and so Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Rigoberto Lopez, and Julio García Espinosa supervised the sound-mix and post-production stages of preparing One way or Another for theatrical release.

[2] A critical analysis conducted by Devyn Spence Benson, a historian of 19th and 20th century Latin America, concluded that Gómez's films advocated for a revolution that fought against discrimination of all forms.

[2] The framing of her films cast light upon the hostility that existed in a post 1959 Cuba concerning censorship and opportunities of equality.

The opening panoramic shots of Afro-Cuban women engaging in everyday work, usually accompanied with Cuban music, was one of the ways in which Gómez showed how the people and their experiences were central to the construction of a new Cuba.

[2] In addition to the content of Gómez's work, her use of formal filmmaking techniques has also been analyzed and praised as innovative stylization fitting into the 1960s trend of imperfect cinema.

[2] Gómez's work reflected the essence of the imperfect cinema tradition by supplying storylines which resonated with the audience's own life and experiences.

The ICAIC had most of her documentaries restricted under censorship and they were stagnant in the institute archives until around 2007 when a group pushed for the digitization of her short films.