Headfirst Editor's Pick
"State-sanctioned socialist propaganda was never this poetic. From the casinos to the shanty towns to the street musicians and revolutionary guards, the Voice of Cuba guides you through a visual fiesta littered with dazzling tracking shots in infrared black and white. Under US embargo until the 90s, this is a sensational relic no casual cinephile (or history buff) can live without. "
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A event held at The Cube on Wednesday 16th October. The event starts at 19:30.
"Some of the most exhilarating camera movements and most luscious black-and-white cinematography you'll ever see inhabit this singular, delirious 141-minute communist propaganda epic."
--Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
To celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of one of cinema’s most beguiling gems, see this beautiful 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 from Milestone’s definitive restoration.
"So epicly impassioned it's less about Cuba per se than the fusillade of movement, shadow, light, vertigo, and landscape on the viewer's tender optic nerves."
--Michael Atkinson, Village Voice
Entry requirements: 18+
--Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
To celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of one of cinema’s most beguiling gems, see this beautiful 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 from Milestone’s definitive restoration.
"So epicly impassioned it's less about Cuba per se than the fusillade of movement, shadow, light, vertigo, and landscape on the viewer's tender optic nerves."
--Michael Atkinson, Village Voice
Entry requirements: 18+
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