Gilberto Perez

Gilberto Perez was an American Professor of Film Studies. Perez grew up in Havana, Cuba, where he was exposed to an eclectic international mix of films. He is the son of Federico Gilberto Pérez y Castillo (1911-1967) and Edenia Mercedes Guillermo y Marrero (1925-2002). He came to the United States in the early 1960s to study engineering. As an undergraduate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he became interested in theoretical physics. For Gil, theoretical physics was appealing because of its ability to explain the world around him: why a moving bicycle doesn't tip over. During the summer, he worked at American Science and Engineering in Cambridge, Massachusetts, analyzing rocket trajectories. At MIT, he became well known for his sometimes pretentious column of movie reviews in The Tech. After receiving his bachelor's degree, he enrolled in Princeton University as a Ph.D. candidate in theoretical physics, but his interest in film began to overtake his interest in physics. As with his work in physics, he always had his own sensibility as to the importance of film criticism. As a film critic, he wanted to understand how and why the film functioned - why the bicycle/film didn't tip over.