This weekend, the Getty Museum hosts Soy Cuba!, a film series in conjunction with A Revolutionary Project: Cuba from Walker Evans to Now, currently on view through October 2. A Revolutionary Project features photographs from three periods of Cuban history: before, during, and after Cuba's 1959 revolution. The J. Paul Getty Museum states:
The exhibition juxtaposes Walker Evans's 1933 images from the end of the Machado dictatorship with views by contemporary foreign photographers Virginia Beahan, Alex Harris, and Alexey Titarenko, who have explored Cuba since the withdrawal of Soviet support in the 1990s.
The US embargo with Cuba was negotiated in the years following the 1959 revolution.
Select images from A Revolutionary Project: Cuba from Walker Evans to Now and trailers for the film series Soy Cuba! included below:
Getty Exhibition
Soy Cuba! comprises four films over this weekend. The series kicks off Saturday at 3:00pm with the pre-revolution narrative, "Our Man In Havana." The 1959 film is based on a novel written by Graham Greene (who adapted his own screenplay for the screen) and stars Maureen O'Hara, Burt Ives, and Alec Guinness. "Our Man In Havana" was nominated for a Golden Globe and runs about 111 minutes.
Saturday continues with a 6:30pm screening of "I am Cuba!" Written by poet Yevgeni Yevtushenko and Enrique Pineda Barnet, this film stars Sergio Corrieri, Salvador Wood and José Gallardo. "I am Cuba!" depicts the transition from pre- to post-revolution Cuba through four vignettes highlighting the lives of a prostitute, a farmer, students, and revolutionaries. In 1995, the 1964 film was presented by Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese in the United States for the first time at New York City's Film Forum- three decades after it was made. Alexander Calzatti (cameraman of I Am Cuba!) and Natasha Calzatti (photographer) host a Point of View: Artist's Talk on June 11, 2:30 p.m.
Sunday's programing begins at noon with "Memories of Underdevelopment." The 1968 film stars Sergio Corrieri (also of "I am Cuba!"), Daisy Granados and Eslinda Núñez. Directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, "Memories of Underdevelopment" is the story of a man recreating his life in Cuba after his loved ones have fled to Miami, following the Bay of Pigs.
The series concludes Sunday evening with "Lucia" at 3pm. "Lucia" transcends time in the tale of three women (all named Lucia) throughout three different eras of Cuban history. Staring Raquel Revuelta, Eslinda Núñez and Adela Legrá, the 1968 film premiered in New York City in 1974.
The Getty Center is located at 1200 Getty Center Drive with access only via the main gate on N. Sepulveda Boulevard. The museum is free to the public and reservations are available for films.