Cuban filmmaker, cultural leader Alfredo Guevara dies

HAVANA -- Prominent filmmaker, intellectual and cultural leader Alfredo Guevara has died, Cuban state media reported Friday. He was 87.

Guevara was a close associate of Fidel and Raul Castro when they were young rebel leaders, and a firm backer of the struggle to oust strongman Fulgencio Batista.

After the 1959 Cuban Revolution, he became a cultural official and defender of the arts. He founded the Cuban Art and Cinematography Institute in 1959 and later the Festival of New Latin American Cinema, one of the oldest of its kind in the region.

State TV said that Guevara died in the morning of a heart attack. -- AP