“It’s a Pity She’s So Ugly,” Wrote ‘Che’ Guevara About the Woman Who Would Become His First Wife.

An Argentine film aims to rescue the figure of Hilda Gadea, who has been erased from official history.

Image of the marriage certificate between Hilda Gadea and Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara / Special

14ymedio, Havana, 23 September 2025 — The life of Hilda Gadea, Ernesto Che Guevara’s first wife, is being adapted into a film. Variety magazine revealed this Monday that filming is underway, based on the Peruvian economist’s memoirs.

Silvina Estévez, the film’s Argentine director, explained in an interview with the outlet that the film will focus on Gadea because she is a “woman whose influence was fundamental in shaping the political vision of one of the most important icons of the 20th century, but whose voice is largely lost in the narrative of her life. She wasn’t just Che’s wife. She was a woman of strong ideas, a professional, an activist, and a mother.”

The film is set in the 1950s, the period in which the two met in Guatemala. Gadea, an economist by profession and a woman who was forward-thinking for her time, gained followers from a young age in a male-dominated environment. She was the first woman to serve on the National Executive Committee of the Apra (American Popular Revolutionary Alliance). After the 1948 coup d’état in Peru, and due to her political activism, she went into exile .

Shortly afterwards, she arrived in Central America, where she quickly joined the progressive government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. In December 1953, she met Guevara, a defining moment for the Argentine, as he learned to use weapons and became close to Castro’s Cuban followers for the first time. Although the film “delves into their romantic relationship,” the relationship between the two was not, at first, reciprocal. “Hilda Gadea declared her love for me both in letter form and in practice. I had quite a bit of asthma; otherwise, I might have caught it. I warned her that all I could offer her was a casual contact, nothing definitive. She seemed very embarrassed. The little letter she gave me when she left is very good; it’s a pity she’s so ugly,” Guevara wrote at the time.

Gadea separated from Guevara, but remained in Cuba until her death in 1974.

Their relationship eventually strengthened. Two years later they married, in August 1955, in Tepotzotlán, State of Mexico (in the center of the country). By then, Gadea was already pregnant with their first child, Hilda Beatriz Guevara Gadea.

The union barely lasted four years, as Che, following Fulgencio Batista’s departure from power on the island, had already found a new partner in Aleida March. Gadea separated from Guevara but remained in Cuba until her death in 1974.

“Interpreting Hilda Gadea is a privilege and an enormous responsibility,” Mexican actress Adriana Paz told Variety. “Her story reminds us that behind every historical figure there are voices that deserve to be heard, especially the voices of women who influenced and transformed their era.” She also confesses: “Being part of this film is a way to revive that memory and question how history is told. Furthermore, being part of a Latin American production that unites us through Spanish and our shared roots is deeply meaningful to me.”

Agustín Pardella, who will play Che Guevara in the film, celebrated the fact that this “is a project narrated by women. I firmly believe there are ways of seeing the world that only exist if we have the opportunity to capture them on screen. Just as Hilda understood that the economy was a tool of power, so too is cinema.”

The project, the magazine explained, is currently in development and is seeking international production partners to help bring to life a story that “weaves the personal and the political into a powerful, globally resonant narrative.”

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