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Cuban actress Luz Maria Collazo gestures subsequent to a poster of the Russian-Cuban movie “Soy Cuba” (“I Am Cuba”) by which she starred, throughout an interview with AFP at her flat in Nuevo Vedado, in Havana, on March 16, 2023. Collazo was Cuba’s first black mannequin, a famend modern dancer and the unforgettable heroine of the Russian-Cuban movie “I’m Cuba,” thought of a masterpiece of world cinematography. ADALBERTO ROQUE / AFP
HAVANA, Cuba—Luz Maria Collazo was Cuba’s first black mannequin, a virtuoso of contemporary dance and star of the movie “Soy Cuba” (I Am Cuba)—a flop in its time now thought of a basic.
Sixty years after it was filmed, Collazo appears to be like again with blended emotions on a profession of ups and downs marked by racism, revolution and resilience.
Aged 79, Collazo claims to have a “very dangerous reminiscence,” which she seeks to refresh with the assistance of envelopes bulging with images, publicity posters and journal covers she pulls from drawers in her small Havana residence.
They’re mementos of a profession launched throughout an inventive explosion that adopted the 1959 revolution, in a interval of relative liberal expression after a long time of a repressive dictatorship.
“I used to be fortunate sufficient to be there throughout this era of creative vitality,” the elegant septuagenarian informed AFP.
Born in Santiago de Cuba in 1943 however raised in Havana, Collazo was 15 when Fidel Castro’s revolution modified the island without end.
Three years later, the daughter of a driver and a housewife determined she wished to review drama.
“I noticed an advert within the newspaper” to review on the Nationwide Theater, she recalled. Trendy dance was additionally on supply, and he or she handed the entry examination for each disciplines.
When it got here to the ultimate selection: “I wished to be an actress however lastly it was dance that seduced me,” mentioned Collazo, who went on to have a protracted profession as a dancer and instructor with a number of corporations.
Then, in 1963, her life modified in an opportunity encounter with the spouse of Soviet cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky on the streets of Havana.
“I used to go each week to get my hair accomplished and as I used to be within the espresso store a woman got here up and mentioned to me: ‘Do you need to make a movie?’ and I mentioned: ‘Oh sure, in fact.’”
Urusevsky was in Cuba with director Mikhail Kalatozov, recipient of the Palme d’Or on the Cannes Movie Pageant in 1958.
The pair had been entrusted with a joint venture of Cuba’s ICAIC movie institute and Soviet studios to honor the friendship between the communist allies.
Too ‘poetic’
“Soy Cuba,” which recounts the overthrow of dictator Fulgencio Batista by Castro and his revolutionaries, was filmed in black and white over a number of months.
Collazo, who mentioned she had been refused many different jobs as a result of systemic racism in Cuba, performed the a part of a poor younger girl pressured to work as a prostitute in casinos.
The film in the present day is hailed for modern filming methods. However when it was launched in 1964, it had a chilly reception within the aftermath of the Cuban missile disaster.
Ties between the nations had been frosty after Soviet chief Nikita Khrushchev withdrew nuclear missiles from the island in a take care of US President John F. Kennedy, with out consulting Castro.
In Havana, the movie was seen as too “poetic,” an unrealistic portrayal of the Caribbean island, Collazo recalled.
It was proven for a brief interval earlier than being withdrawn.
The movie additionally proved unpopular within the USSR, and in america it was banned due to its communist origins.
“I used to be upset,” mentioned Collazo.
Many years later, the movie acquired a brand new lease on life after being proven on the Telluride Movie Pageant in Colorado in 1992 in an homage to Kalatozov.
It was found by administrators Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, who actively promoted it.
A restored model of the movie gained a prize at Cannes in 2004, and in the present day it’s studied as a masterpiece of cinematography at movie faculties in Europe and america.
‘Distinctive on the time’
The movie’s preliminary box-office failure didn’t deter Collazo from pursuing her future.
Years later, she was once more stopped on the road: this time by Cuban photographer Alberto Korda—creator of the legendary portrait of Che Guevara.
Korda requested her to pose for him.
“It was distinctive on the time to decide on a black girl,” mentioned Collazo, who went on to have a profitable modeling profession that included having her face on adverts for Cuban rum.
At the moment, she is crammed with “unhappiness” for the passing years and her precarious scenario in a Cuba fraught with financial hardship.
“I’m very nostalgic taking a look at these footage,” sighed Collazo.
“I believe I’ve been fortunate, to have been right here and there, to have been a mannequin in addition to a dancer.” /ra
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