I am Cuba (Soy Cuba) viewing and discussion

I am Cuba (Soy Cuba)
141 minutes (2 hrs, 21 minutes)
1964 (Released 1995 by Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese)
Director: Mikhail Kalatozov Writers: Enrique Pineda Barnet , Yevgeni Yevtushenko*

Presented at the second meeting of the
Revolutionary Film Club: watch and discuss revolutionary and political films
Sunday, March 16, 2008
5PM at a home in the Castro. (Convenient to the Muni 33)

View a trailer (after a capitalist commercial-we’ll fix that right after the revolution.)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058604/trailers-screenplay-E14472-310

One of the most black and white films ever produced, I AM CUBA, is a remarkable Soviet-Cuban collaboration about the revolution and the Cuban people. This film will no doubt spur an interesting discussion about Cuba, its dynamic revolution, and the fate of that revolution today.

The film was largely forgotten until 1993 when it reappeared in a film festival and was rereleased. The film defied the puritanical narrowness of Soviet film and was denounced as “formalist” by the Stalinist film authorities. It has survived while the authorities have been doomed to obscurity.

Here’s a good, short description from IMDB.com:

Four vignettes in Batista's Cuba dramatize the need for revolution; long, mobile shots tell almost wordless stories. In Havana, Maria faces shame when a man who fancies her discovers how she earns her living. Pedro, an aging peasant, is summarily told that the land he farms has been sold to United Fruit. A university student faces down a crowd of swaggering U.S. sailors and then watches friends shot by police when they try to distribute a pro-Castro leaflet. The war arrives on the doorstep of peasants Mariano, Amelia, and their four children when Batista's forces bomb the hills. Mariano wants peace, so he seeks out the guerrillas to join the fight.

For an interesting review by in the British Film Institute:
http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/171

Also useful, the Wikipedia entry for this film:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Cuba

*For a short biography of Yevgeny Yevtushenko, the acclaimed Soviet dissident poet and writer who contributed to the script:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Yevtushenko


This series is sponsored by the Workers International League’s San Francisco Branch. The WIL is a socialist organization and the discussion afterward are informal and free ranging. The screening is free, but a collection for the Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign will be made. Everyone is encouraged to bring something to drink and to discuss the film afterwards.



Other Upcoming films in the series:
Strike!,Sergei M. Eisenstein 82 minutes, 1925, Silent, Russian with English subtitles, USSR
The Battle of Algiers, Pontecorvo, 121 minutes, 1967, Algeria
1900, Bertolucci, Italian with English subtitles, US, Italy, China
Salt of the Earth, Herbert J. Biberman, 94 minutes, 1954, English/Spanish US
Last Emperor, The, Bertolucci English Italy/China
Land and Freedom, Ken Loach,109 minutes, 1995, English. UK
Burn, Pontecorvo, 1970, featuring Marlon Brando, English