a rather cold reaction by audiences. In Havana it was criticized for showing a stereotypical view of Cubans, and in Moscow it was considered naïve, not sufficiently revolutionary, even too sympathetic to the lives of the bourgeois, pre-Castro classes. Cameraman Alexander Calzatti stated that the crew "was so enthusiastic [that] we were infected by it, and we worked very hard"; as a result "very soon after we came back to Russia, more than half of our crew died. I survived because I was very young." Also, upon its original release, the movie never reached Western countries largely because it was a communist production, in the midst of the Cold War era, and due to the United States embargo against Cuba. Restoration Until the USSR collapsed in the early 1990s, I Am Cuba was virtually unknown. In 1992, a print of the film was screened at the Telluride Film Festival. The San Francisco International Film Festival screened the film in 1993. Shortly after the festival, three film professionals who had screened I Am Cuba at the San Francisco screening contacted friends at Milestone Films, a small New York film distributor specializing in the release of once-lost and neglected older films. Milestone screened a slightly blurry, unsubtitled VHS tape of the film and then went about acquiring the distribution rights from Mosfilm in Russia. Milestone's release opened at New York's Film Forum in March 1995. For the tenth anniversary of the film release, Milestone debuted a new 35 mm restoration of I Am Cuba without the Russian overdubbing in September 2005. Milestone released an Ultimate Edition DVD boxset at the time as well, with a video appreciation from Scorsese. On March 19, 2018 the trailer for a new 4K restoration by Milestone films was released. It became available later that year on Milestone films' Vimeo powered streaming service. Sometime after April 2021 this film was removed from the Milestone films streaming catalog because they sold the film's license to another company. Until that company announces their re-release of the restored version of the film, which may happen in the beginning of 2022, Milestone films is not at liberty to say who bought the license. Milestone films' customers that purchased home use 4K streaming rights to the film were offered an HD digital download of the film and if those customers asked for a 4K download they were given a refund on their