Hurricane Kalatozov, the documentary about Mikhail Kalatozov, is short, 74 minutes (there is nothing worse than a long documentary), and contains important information about the development and achievements of the great Soviet director. Here are the four films that mean the most to me: To Sleep with Anger, Blade Runner, The Mirror, and I Am Cuba. The first, directed by Charles Burnett, is the blues as cinema; the second, directed by Ridley Scott, is urban theory as cinema; the third, by Andrei Tarkovsky, is philosophy as cinema; the last, directed by Kalatozov, is social revolution as cinema.

The moment in I Am Cuba that always moves me deeply is when, during the funeral of the martyr, the camera flies out of a cigar factory window and over the street. The documentary shows and discusses this moment (and, yes, I have written about it before, and I will certainly write about it again if the opportunity arises). The camera flies above the funeral procession. Women and men step onto iron balconies and throw flowers at the procession. The flowers fall, the petals fall, and the camera flies and flies over it all. This is the soul of the feelings that long for human dignity and freedom from the exploitative capitalist system. We want to be as free as this camera that's flying over the streets of Havana, the city of revolutionary dreams.

SIFF Cinema, Sat June 4 at 1:30 pm.

Kirkland Performance Center, Sun June 5 at 3 pm.