Maverick filmmaker, who has consistently operated outside of the mainstream, both commercially and in the art-house circuit, has been working as a one-man crew since making his first short film at the age of 17 with an old VHS camcorder. This initial short film granted him admission to the International Film School of San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba (EICTV). Throughout his country, he has garnered numerous awards for his experimental short films, including Bailar sobre agujas (1999),Nice Going (1999),and Clase z tropical (2000),among others.
In 2001, he was awarded a scholarship to the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in New York, where he produced his first feature film, Red Cockroaches (2003),for less than $2,000 over a two-year period. This film has won 20 awards at international film festivals and was hailed by Variety as "A triumph of technology in the hands of a visionary with know-how..." Coyula has typically funded his work through grants and private investors who serve as executive and associate producers of his films.
In 2010, the Sundance Film Festival premiered his film Memorias del desarrollo (2010),a follow-up to the Cuban classic Memories of Underdevelopment (1968),based on the follow-up novel by Cuban writer Edmundo Desnoes, also the author of the original. The film accumulated 20 awards and was chosen as the Best Cuban Film of the year by the International Film Guide. In 2009, Coyula was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. His subsequent project was the documentary Nadie (2017),centered around dissident Cuban poet Rafael Alcides and his relationship with the Cuban revolution.
Corazón azul (2021) was filmed underground over a decade, until its premiere at the Moscow International Film Festival in 2021. Subsequently, the film won the HFPA award at the Guadalajara Film Festival. Throughout his career, he has presented his work and given talks at several universities, including Yale, Princeton, Tulane, Emerson, Cornell, UW, UM, and Rice, among others. He has also published the novels "Mar Rojo, Mal Azul" in 2013, "La Isla Vertical" in 2022, and the non-fiction book "Matar el Realismo".
