Thu, Mar 5
6:30 pm	to	9:00 pm

On Screen at Artpace: Guillermina Zabala
The third in a trio of films selected and presented by artist Guillermina Zabala. Soy Cuba, 1964. This film by Mikhail Kalatozov follows four separate stories and uses stunning imagery to create a poetic documentary that praises the rise of the Cuban revolution. 140 mins. Free admission.

I Am Cuba

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I am Cuba (Spanish: Soy Cuba; Russian: ‘Я – Куба, Ya – Kuba)
Directed by	Mikhail Kalatozov
Produced by	Bela Fridman Semyon Maryakhin Miguel Mendoza
Written by	Enrique Pineda Barnet Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Starring	Sergio Corrieri Salvador Wood
Cinematography	Sergey Urusevsky
Release date(s)	1964
Country	Cuba Soviet Union
Language	Spanish/Russian

I am Cuba (Spanish: Soy Cuba; Russian: Я Куба, Ya Kuba) is a Soviet/Cuban film produced in 1964 by director Mikhail Kalatozov at Mosfilm.The movie was not received well by either the Russian or Cuban public^[1] and was almost completely forgotten until it was re-discovered by filmmakers in the United States 30 years later.^[1] The movie’s acrobatic tracking shots and idiosyncratic mise en scene prompted Hollywood directors like Martin Scorsese to begin a campaign to restore the movie in the early 1990s.

Contents [hide] 1 History 2 Story 3 Documentary 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

// if (window.showTocToggle) { var tocShowText = "show"; var tocHideText = "hide"; showTocToggle(); }
//]]>

[edit] History

Shortly after the 1959 Cuban revolution overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, the socialist Castro government, isolated by the United States after the latter broke diplomatic and trade relations in 1961, turned to the USSR for film partnerships. The Soviet government, interested in promoting international socialism, agreed to finance a film about the Cuban revolution.

The director was given considerable freedom to complete the work, and was given much help from both the Soviet and Cuban governments. They made use of innovative filming techniques, such as coating a watertight camera’s lens with a special submarine periscope cleaner, so the camera could be submerged and lifted out of the water without any drops on the lens or film. At one point, more than a thousand Cuban soldiers were moved to a remote location to shoot one scene — this despite the then-ongoing Cuban missile crisis.

In another scene, the camera follows a coffin along a crowded street. Then it stops and slowly moves upwards for at least four stories until it is filming the coffin from above a building. Without stopping it then starts tracking sideways and enters through a window into a cigar factory, then goes straight towards a window where the cigar workers are watching the coffin. The camera finally passes through the window and appears to float over the street between the buildings. These shots were accomplished by assembling a line of technicians, and passing the camera down the line, from hand to hand.

Even though it had such great support, the movie was given a cold reaction by audiences. In Havana it was criticized for showing a rather stereotyped view of Cubans, while in Moscow it was considered naïve, not revolutionary enough, even too sympathetic to the lives of the bourgeois pre-Fidel classes. Also, upon its original release, the movie never reached Western countries largely due to it being a Communist production.

When the USSR collapsed in the early 1990s, I Am Cuba was virtually unknown. In 1992, Cuban novelist Guillermo Cabrera Infante, the guest co-director of the Telluride Film Festival, screened a print of the film at the festival as part of a retrospective on Kalatazov. The San Francisco International Film Festival screened the film in 1993. Shortly after the festival, three film professionals who had screened I Am Cuba at the San Francisco screening contacted friends at Milestone Films in New York. The tiny film distributor had released several “lost” or neglected older films (as it continues to do). Milestone watched a blurry unsubtitled VHS tape of the film and then went about acquiring the distribution rights from Mosfilm in Russia. In 1994, a friend invited Martin Scorsese to a private screening. Scorsese was amazed by the film, and when Milestone approached him to lend his name to the company’s release of the film, he was happy and enthusiastic to do so. Milestone’s release was also co-presented by another fan of I Am Cuba, director Francis Ford Coppola. Milestone’s release opened at New York’s Film Forum in March 1995. For the tenth anniversary of the film, Milestone debuted a new 35 mm restoration of I am Cuba without the Russian overdubbing in September 2005.

[edit] Story

The movie consists of four distinct short stories about the suffering of the Cuban people and their reactions, varying from passive amazement in the first, to a guerrilla march in the last. Between the stories, a female narrator (credited “The Voice Of Cuba”) says such things as, “I am Cuba, the Cuba of the casinos, but also of the people.”

The first story (centered on the character Maria) shows the destitute Cuban masses contrasted with the splendor in the American-run gambling casinos and prostitution in Havana. The next story is about a farmer, Pedro, burning his sugar cane when he learns he is going to lose his land to United Fruit. The third story describes the suppression of rebellious students led by a character named Enrique at Havana University (featuring one of the longest camera shots). The final part shows how Mariano, a typical farmer, ends up joining the rebels in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, ultimately leading to triumphal march into Havana to proclaim the revolution.

[edit] Documentary

In 2005 a documentary about the making of I Am Cuba was released called Soy Cuba: O Mamute Siberiano or I Am Cuba: the Siberian Mammoth directed by a Brazilian, Vicente Ferraz. The film looks at the history of the making of the film, explains some of the technical feats of the film and there are interviews with many of the people who worked on it.

[edit] See also

• Cinema of Cuba

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b} The New Cult Canon: I am Cuba. AV Club, May 1. 2008.

[edit] External links

• I Am Cuba at the Internet Movie Database
• Soy Cuba, O Mamute Siberiano at the Internet Movie Database
• I Am Cuba at Allmovie
• Entry in Allmovie
• From Russia with Love, an article by Richard Gott from The Guardian November 2005

[hide] v • d • e Films directed by Mikhail Kalatozov Blind, Salt of Svanetiya, Nail in a boot, Courage, Valery Chkalov, Invincibles, Plot of the Doomed, Hostile Whirlwinds, True Friends, First echelon, The Cranes are Flying, The Unsent Letter, I Am Cuba, The Red Tent

No Comments »

Thu, Mar 5
6:00 pm	to	10:00 pm

Betsy Atwell Dudley and Joseph Cohen
Joan Grona Gallery
March 5 – April 23, 2009

Joan Grona presents sculptures by Betsy Atwell Dudley in the main gallery and painted surfaces by and Joseph Cohen in gallery II.

Joan Grona Gallery

http://www.joangronagallery.com

112 Blue Star

San Antonio, TX 78204

ARTsmart Student Exhibit
Stella Haus Art Space
Opens Thursday, Mar. 5, 6-9 pm
Through March 28.
Blue Star board member Dayna De Hoyos, who also owns the Stella Haus Art Space, has invited Mosaic Art Program’s high school students to exhibit a series of self images and portraits. Artist Alex Rubio, the students’ instructor and mentor, curated this show.

Justice Works Studio

“Friends of Barbara Justice and Adriana Barrios, the owners of JUSTICE works gallery, present their drawings. The twenty artists from various places (San Antonio, San Diego, Oakland, San Francisco, Portland, Mexico, Ukraine, Serbia, and South Korea) compose their distinctive talent into 20” by 20” papers. The works will be sale for forty dollars each to support the gallery. The hours are March 5-6, 6pm-10pm, and the music by SUN CITY HUSTLERS on Friday.”

The gallery is located at Blue Star Arts Complex, 113-1 BlueStar (next to UTSA Satellite Space).

Bluestar Contemporary Art Center invites the public to a Gallery Talk on Thursday, March 5th at 6:30 p.m. Contemporary artist, McKay Otto will talk about his current exhibition in the Project Space at the Bluestar Art Center, located at 1400 South Alamo Street. For more information, the phone number is 227-6960.

Vincent Falsetta
REM gallery
March 5 – April 25, 2009

Don’t miss UNT professor Vincent Falsetta’s beautifully obsessive painted abstractions. They are definitely worth a look!

Apparatus: Dylan Collins, Andries Fourie, and Donald Henson
UTSA Satellite Space
March 6 – March 22, 2009

Curated by UTSA professor Scott A. Sherer, this exhibition “brings together three artists who explore the correspondences between mechanical systems and the human body’s operations.”

Luminaria Benefit Print Sale

Date:	Thursday, March 5, 2009
Time:	6:00pm – 10:00pm
Location:	Bismarck Studios
Street:	930 Proton
City/Town:	San Antonio, TX
:

Phone:

2103147747

Bismark Studios – “Make Art History”

Luminaria is San Antonio’s own city-wide arts festival and is shaping up to be a fabulous one-night event in March. Bismarck Studios is supporting three local artists in their Luminaria projects by sponsoring a ONE NIGHT ONLY, limited edition print sale, March 5, 2009. You can collect the work of these three well-known artists at a fraction of their normal selling price.

Katie Pell, Ansen Seale and Kate Terrell are each making a limited edition print which will sell for $150 each only on Mar. 5. The final number of the edition will be 20. The work of these artists usually sell for hundreds of dollars more than this special price.

Buy one and YOU JUST MADE ART HISTORY by supporting the Arts in San Antonio!

High Wire Arts

Date:	Thursday, March 5, 2009
Time:	6:00pm – 9:00pm
Location:	High Wire Arts
Street:	326 Josephine
City/Town:	San Antonio, TX
:

The art show will showcase: Cindy Palmer, Maggie Looney, Missi Smith, Toni Richardson, Rosa Gonzalez, and Judy Cadwell.

Opening reception:
March 5th 6-9 p.m. 2009

Gallery Hours:
Tue.- Thur. 9:30-12:30 or by appointment.

210-320- 5702
210-382- 4442

The exhibit ends march 19th

International Center Gallery 203 S. St. Mary’s St., . “Landscape of Nuevo León,” photography on canvas by Erick Estrada B.

Stonemetal Press Blue Star Arts Complex, 1400 S. Alamo St., No. 104, . “Presence in Nature,” drawings by Glen Rogers. 6:30-9 p.m. opening reception.

Fiber Artspace
Grand Re-Opening Reception in our new location
1414 Alamo St. No 103
Armon Art @ Blue Star

Liz Axford is an artist who lives in Houston, Texas. Her work includes an increasing variety of fiber techniques: quiltmaking, surface design, handmade felt and embroidery. A former architect, she teaches quiltmaking design and fabric dyeing nationally. Her work has been included in many juried shows including Quilt National, Crafts National, Fiberarts International, CraftHouston and Materials: Hard and Soft. She was the 1998 recipient of the QuiltVisions Quilt Japan Prize, and in 2005 received an Individual Artists Fellowship Grant from the Cultural Arts Center of Houston.
March 5, 2009 6-9pm

No Comments »