Thu, Dec 6 / 7 pm
Sat & Sun, Dec 8 & 9 / 3 pm & 7 pm
Wed - Fri, Dec 12 - 14 / 7 pm
Sat, Dec 15 / 3 pm
Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov
1964, Cuba/Russia, 141 min
Spanish, English and Russian with subtitles
Milestone Films has recently restored a beautiful new 4K restoration remastered from an original Russian 35mm fine grain copy of this astonishing work of beauty. When Mikhail Kalatozov’s I Am Cuba — a long-lost, phantasmagoric Cuban-Soviet propaganda film from 1964 — was rediscovered, critic Terrence Rafferty wrote the following in his New Yorker review: “They’re going to be carrying ravished film students out of the theaters on stretchers.”
For many directors and cinematographers, the 1995 United States premiere of I am Cuba at Film Forum in New York changed the course of filmmaking as we know it today. Kalatozov’s masterpiece is a wildly schizophrenic celebration of Communist kitsch, mixing Slavic solemnity with Latin sensuality. The plot, or rather plots, feverishly explore the seductive, decadent (and marvellously photogenic) world of Batista’s Cuba deliriously juxtaposing images of rich Americans and bikini clad beauties sipping cocktails with scenes of ramshackle slums. Using wide angle lenses that distort and magnify and filters that transform palm trees into giant white feathers the cinematography is nothing short of breathtaking.
