Screening Dates
  • February 8, 2019 8:30
  • February 9, 2019 8:30
  • February 10, 2019 6:30
New Restoration

“A feverish pas de deux of Eastern European soulfulness and Latin sensuality … It suggests Eisenstein filtered through La Dolce Vita with an Afro-Cuban pulse.”

Stephen Holden, New York Times

One of the most ravishing films ever made has been re-released in a lustrous new restoration. Prepare to be astounded! Directed by Soviet veteran Mikhail Kalatozov (The Cranes Are Flying), and shot, sensationally, by his gifted cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky, this joint Cuba-USSR production was intended as a Battleship Potemkin for the Cuban people. Its four up-the-revolution episodes were designed to reveal the decadence of Batista’s pre-Communist Cuba. The film unfolds as a rich, propulsive, impressionistic panorama of Cuban life, culture, economic disparity, and political strife. Urusevsky’s acrobatic, gravity-defying sequence shots are truly breathtaking; few movies are more sensual or seductive. Tepidly received in both socialist countries, I Am Cuba was shelved and largely forgotten. Its rediscovery in the 1990s was a major cinematic event.

“Visually staggering … Taken as either historical footnote or a mad aesthetic flight, I Am Cuba is remarkable.”

Dennis Harvey, Variety

“Absolutely astonishing. I Am Cuba is that rarity of rarities—a genuine hidden treasure. It puts to shame anything we’re doing today.”

Martin Scorsese

“One of the most deliriously beautiful films ever made.”

Manohla Dargis, LA Weekly
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