WASHINGTON FILM INSTITUTE
and Youth For Understanding USA cordially invite you to celebrate the forthcoming normalization of US-Cuba Relations with A Screening of
I AM CUBA
Post Views [post_view]
SATURDAY 11 JULY
THE ARTS CLUB
2017 Eye Street NW, WDC 20006 MAP / DIRECTIONS / PARKING
I AM CUBA
141 minutes, Spanish with English subtitles
Director: Mikhail Kalatozov
Writers: Enrique Pineda Barnet, Evgeniy Evtushenko
Stars: Sergio Corrieri, Salvador Wood, José Gallardo
Hidden away in the Soviet archives for three decades, “I Am Cuba” is a wildly schizophrenic celebration of Communist kitsch, mixing Slavic solemnity with Latin sensuality — a whirling, feverish dance through both the sensuous decadence of Batista’s Havana and the grinding poverty and oppression of the Cuban people. In four stories of the revolution, Mikhail Kalatov’s astonishingly acrobatic camera takes the viewer on a rapturous roller-coaster ride of bathing beauties, landless peasants, fascist police, and student revolutionaries.
REVIEWS
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
It is one of the most visually hypnotic films ever — and that’s not hyperbole.
—G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle
The resulting assault is so epically 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
It is a dream of life in which everything is reduced to black and white. Or as the rhetoric used to go, you are either part of the problem or part of the solution. Nothing was ever quite that simple.
—Stephen Holden, New York Times
In a sense, it’s a movie about looking past surfaces to see what’s in front of you. It takes the time to look around and discovers majesty, beauty and pathos everywhere it turns.
—Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times
One of the most stylistically vigorous films of all time.
—Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle
As an example of lyrical black and white filmmaking, it is still stunning. If you see it, try to figure out how the camera floated down that wall.
—Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
SCHEDULE
7:00PM
Doors open
7:20PM
Any unoccupied seats = sold to people at Door or given to MUSIC / DANCE only ticket holders.
7:30PM
First Screening (inside 2F)
9:45PM
Second Screening (inside 2F)
7:30PM – 11:30PM
Drinks Gathering / Mixer / Dancing with Cuban Music by DC’s legendary DJ Reyna!**
**We have reconfigured the space so that, rain or shine, we will be able to both screen the FILM and DANCE!
TICKETS
$12 / $15 Advance
$20 Door
(seating for FILM available only in case of no shows now, MUSIC/DANCE only tickets still available)
ATTIRE
Though not required, Cuban attire (examples at
http://www.cubanproducts.com/images/product_images/info_images/85_0.jpg
http://www.cubanproducts.com/images/product_images/info_images/85_0.jpg
https://www.pinterest.com/nisreenz/havana-nights-fashion/)
business/business casual or cocktail attire preferred.
THE ARTS CLUB
For nearly a century the Arts Club of Washington has promoted and celebrated the visual, performing, and literary arts in the nation’s capital. Gatherings for members, exhibits and performances for the public, and a range of private events are held in the club’s historic I Street mansion, which was formerly the home of President James Monroe. Arts Club members come from a wide range of artistic disciplines and professional backgrounds, joined by their shared enjoyment and appreciation of the arts.