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Sunday, Jul 9, 2023
7 PM (136 mins)
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BAMPFA
I Am Cuba
(Soy Cuba), (Ja Kuba)
featuringOne of the most visually titanic works in the century of movies.
Michael Atkinson, Village Voice
Luz María Collazo, Jean Bouise, Sergio Corrieri, José Gallardo,
Here is an extraordinary example of “pure” cinema in the service of politics. “A true film maudit. Impossible to see in Cuba (where it was called I Am NOT Cuba), and scorned in Russia as agitprop kitsch, I Am Cuba was made in 1962 as an act of Soviet-Cuban friendship. Yevgeny Yevtushenko gets credit for the film’s poetic structure—a loose series of choreographed tableaux in praise of the revolutionary spirit. It is also a deliriously one-of-a-kind movie, wildly schizophrenic in its bizarre mix of Slavic solemnity and Latin sensuality” (Tom Luddy, Telluride Film Festival). “The most brilliant Soviet film since the 1920s. Kalatozov and cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky have . . . realized Eisenstein’s dream: an epic of the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed Latin American masses, using visual images and nearly no dialogue. [They] have used their ‘emotional camera’ to an extent which has to be seen to be believed, using handheld camera, wide-angle lenses, oddly tilted angles . . . and elaborate crane shots” (Steven P. Hill, Film Quarterly).
Event Accessibility
If you have any questions about accessibility or require accommodations to participate in this event, please contact us at bampfa@berkeley.edu or call us at (510) 642-1412 (during open hours) with as much advance notice as possible. More information on accessibility services.
FILM DETAILS
Screenwriter
- Yevgeny Yevtushenko
- Enrique Pineda Barnet
Cinematographer
- Sergei Urusevsky
Language
- Spanish
- Russian voiceover
- with English subtitles
Print Info
- B&W
- 35mm
- 136 mins
Source
- Kino Lorber
CINEFILES
CineFiles is an online database of BAMPFA's extensive collection of documentation covering world cinema, past and present.
View I Am Cuba documents
Cinema vertigo : radical film's secrets revealed (review), Village Voice, Michael Atkinson, 2005
I am Cuba (distributor materials), Milestone Film & Video, 1996
I am Cuba (distributor materials), Milestone Film & Video, 1995
'I am Cuba' is dated but interesting (review), Oakland Tribune, Stephen Holden, 1995
I am Cuba (flyer), Milestone Film & Video, 1995
Visionary agitprop (article), Reader (Chicago, Ill.), Jonathan Rosenbaum, 1995
Cuba libre (review), Village Voice, J. Hoberman, 1995
Mea Cuba II (interview), Village Voice, J. Hoberman, 1995
I am Cuba (program note), Pacific Film Archive Calendar, Judy Bloch, 1994
I am Cuba (program note), Wellington Film Festival, 1994
Displaying 10 of 25 publicly available documents.