Summary
DVD Details: USSR/Cuba, 1964, 141 minutes, Color, Region 0, NTSC, Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0, Optional English subtitles, In Spanish and Russian; Special Features of this 3-disc deluxe box set: DISC 1: New high-definition transfer of the feature film from original Russian 35mm fine grain interpositive; video interview with Academy Award®-winning director Martin Scorsese; language tracks in both Spanish and Russian with new English subtitles; Cuban version of opening credits; original Milestone trailer; stills gallery; DISC 2: THE SIBERIAN MAMMOTH, Vicente Ferraz's award-winning documentary on the making of I AM CUBA (2005. 91 mins. Color/B&W. Portuguese, Spanish & Russian with English subtitles.); City Cinematheque's Jerry Carlson interviews screenwriter Yevgeny Yevtushenko (2004. 10 minutes. Color. English); DISC 3: A FILM ABOUT MIKHAIL KALATOZOV, a comprehensive documentary on this giant of Russian cinema (2006. 120 mins. Color/B&W. English & Russian with English subtitles); PLUS scene selections; I AM CUBA: THE TRUE STORY, a booklet on the making of the film and its history since then.
A fever dream, a plunging rollercoaster ride, a cinematographer's hallucination, a love song to the power of cinema. Welcome to I AM CUBA, the film rediscovery that has changed filmmaking forever in a new deluxe edition! Director Mikhail Kalatozov (THE CRANES ARE FLYING) and cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky's hybrid offspring of Soviet orthodoxy and Cuban tropicalismo is a film of dazzling contrasts. In four intertwining stories of the revolution, Urusevsky's acrobatic camera takes the viewer on a dizzying ride through smoky nightclubs and rooftop pool parties, rickety shantytowns and rustling sugarcane fields, student protest rallies and remote guerilla outposts. I AM CUBA culminates in the most gorgeously filmed funeral procession of all time, as the camera floats through a cigar factory and hovers high above the narrow streets of Havana. A whirling dance through the sensuous decadence of Batista's Cuba, I AM CUBA: THE ULTIMATE EDITION is a cinephile's dream come true.