The plot, or rather plots, of " I Am Cuba" feverishly explore the seductive, decadent (and marvelously photogenic) world of Batista’s Cuba — deliriously juxtaposing images of rich Americans and bikini-clad beauties sipping cocktails poolside with scenes of ramshackle slums filled with hungry children and gaunt old people. Using wide-angle lenses that distort and magnify and filters that transform palm trees into giant white feathers, Urusevsky’s acrobatic camera achieves wild gravity-defying angles as it glides effortlessly through long continuous shots.

Martin Scorcese said, upon first seeing it in the early '90s (after retrieving one of the two remaining prints from an the national film archive in Moscow) that if he had seen "Yo Soy Cuba" at the beginning of his career, it would have changed his directing style.

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