I Am Cuba

Sergio Corrieri, Salvador Wood, José Gallardo

“They’re going to be carrying ravished film students out of the theatres on stretchers.” New Yorker

To celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of one of cinema’s most beguiling gems, see this beautiful 4K restoration of Mikhail Kalatozov’s panorama of Cuban life. I Am Cuba’s subject is revolution, with four tales of island life before the arrival of Communism. But its means are also revolutionary, with some of the most dazzling shots that have inspired filmmakers from Sally Potter to Paul Thomas Anderson. Suppressed as propaganda for decades, I Am Cuba’s ecstatic vision is an essential watch for any cinephile, still pushing boundaries six decades since its creation.

Beginning production a week after the end of the Cuban Missile crisis, Kalatozov (The Cranes Are Flying) aimed to make Cuba’s answer to Battleship Potemkin. Yet it was spurned by Soviet and Cuban audiences, and then refound and presented by Milestone Films in the 1990s in collaboration with Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. It quickly became a source of fascination and awe for filmmakers, from its infra-red cinematography to its jaw-dropping single takes.

This version of Soy Cuba is the English-subtitled, full Spanish-language version, presented in 4K DCP from Milestone’s definitive restoration.