I Am Cuba (1964)

Original title

Soy Cuba

Directed by

Mikhail Kalatozov

Genre

drama film, experimental film, anthology film, propaganda film

Country

Soviet Union, Cuba

Runtime

2h 23m

Rated

TP

Rating

7.8 of 10 from 253 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This 1964 Soviet-Cuban film tells four separate stories about life in Cuba just before the revolution. It follows ordinary people through dramatic, sweeping camera movements and high-contrast black-and-white images.

propagandisticstylizedsoaringmelodramaticintensevisually daringpoliticallyrical

What happens

I Am Cuba (Spanish: Soy Cuba; Russian: Я — Куба, romanized: Ya — Kuba) is a 1964 political drama anthology film directed by Mikhail Kalatozov. An international co-production between the Soviet Union and Cuba, it follows four distinct stories about the Cuban population shortly before the Revolution. The film was almost completely forgotten in the West until it was re-discovered by filmmakers in the United States three decades later. The acrobatic tracking shots and idiosyncratic mise-en-scène prompted Hollywood directors like Martin Scorsese to begin a campaign to restore the film in the early 1990s. I Am Cuba was shot in black and white, sometimes using infrared film obtained from the Soviet military to exaggerate contrast (making trees and sugar cane almost white, and skies very dark but still obviously sunny). Most shots are in extreme wide-angle and the camera passes very close to its subjects, whilst still largely avoiding having those subjects ever look directly at the camera. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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