I Am Cuba

Director: Mikhail Kalatozov
USSR/Cuba. 1964.
141 minutes. Black & White.

Started only a week after the Cuban missile crisis and designed to be Cuba’s answer to both Sergei Eisenstein’s propaganda masterpiece, Potemkin and Jean-Luc Godard’s freewheeling romance, Breathless, I Am Cuba turned out to be something quite unique — a wildly schizophrenic celebration of Communist kitsch, mixing Slavic solemnity with Latin sensuality. The plot, or rather plots, feverishly explore the seductive, decadent (and marvelously photogenic) world of Batista’s Cuba — deliriously juxtaposing images of rich Americans and bikini-clad beauties sipping cocktails poolside with scenes of ramshackle slums filled with hungry children and gaunt old people. Using wide-angle lenses that distort and magnify and filters that transform palm trees into giant white feathers, Urusevsky’s acrobatic camera achieves wild gravity-defying angles as it glides effortlessly through long continuous shots. But I Am Cuba is not just a catalog of bravura technique — it also succeeds in exploring the innermost feelings of the characters and their often desperate situations. Shown unsubtitled at the San Francisco International Film Festival, I Am Cuba received two standing ovations — during the screening. The first movie ever jointly presented by master filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, I Am Cuba is one of the great discoveries in cinema. It will change your view of cinema forever!

Bonus Features

I AM CUBA

"THE ULTIMATE EDITION"

Brand-new high-def master!

Both Spanish and Russian Soundtracks

Full-length doc, THE SIBERIAN MAMMOTH

Full-length doc, FILM ABOUT MIKHAIL KALATOZOV

Long Interview with Martin Scorsese

Interview with co-author Yevgeney Yevtushenko

Original American trailer

Full-length booklet

and more!

Reviews

"One of the most deliriously beautiful films ever made." — L.A. Weekly

"SPECTACULAR! VISUALLY STUNNING" — Stephen Holden, The New York Times

"A SENSUOUSLY BEAUTIFUL MOVIE A hymn to the liberation of appetite. IRRESISTIBLE!" — David Denby, New York Magazine