I Am Cuba

I Am Cuba
Directed byMikhail Kalatozov
Written by
Produced by
  • Bela Fridman
  • Semyon Maryakhin
  • Miguel Mendoza
Starring
CinematographySergey Urusevsky
Edited byNina Glagoleva
Music byCarlos Fariñas
Distributed by
Release dates
  • 1964 (1964)
  • 8 March 1995 (1995-03-08) (U.S.)
  • 22 May 2003 (2003-05-22) (Cannes Film Festival)
Running time
135 minutes /
141 minutes
Countries
Languages
  • Spanish
  • English

I Am Cuba (Spanish: Soy Cuba; Russian: Я - Куба, Ya – Kuba) is a 1964 film directed by Mikhail Kalatozov at Mosfilm. An international co-production between the Soviet Union and Cuba, it is an anthology film mixing political drama and propaganda.

The film was almost completely forgotten until it was re-discovered by filmmakers in the United States thirty years later.[1] 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 is shot in black and white, sometimes using infrared film obtained from the Soviet military[2] 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.

  1. ^ The New Cult Canon: I am Cuba Archived 10 October 2016 at the Wayback Machine. The A.V. Club, 1 May 2008.
  2. ^ 2005 Brazilian documentary The Siberian Mammoth