ORIGINAL TITLE
Soy Cuba
1964
DIRECTOR
Mikhail Kalatozov
SCREENPLAY
Enrique Pineda Barnet, Yevgeny Yevtushenko
PRODUCTION
Bela Fridman, Semyon Maryakhin, Miguel Mendoza
DURATION
141 minutes
COUNTRY
Cuba
CAST
Sergio Corrieri, Salvador Wood
35mm
Original Spanish version with Italian subtitles
PLOT
I am Cuba is director Mikhail Kalatozov’s 1964 meditation on the need for revolution, told through the hunger for freedom from repression created by the citizens of Cuba living under the thoughtless rule of Battista. It may be one of the most visually seductive films of all time, and a tribute to the power of art. “It’s an amazing formal and intellectual exercise”, Iñárritu offers. “It’s just hard to simply surrender to propaganda – for that to happen, it has to be so impregnated with poetry that then it becomes something else and it crosses over into masterpiece, which the film does. After the first shot, you are on the floor by knockout”.