Trips are part of humanity. Emigration is a part of humanity. And it's ever more dynamic due to globalization.

Cubans joke and satirize everything that life gives them, and I think that's a positive characteristic.

What is happiness to me is not necessarily for you. Someone once said, there are three truths: your truth, my truth and the truth. And I think that's true.

It's true that in Cuba there are double standards, there's opportunism, and there is a lack of freedom in some ways.

There was a time when emigration from Cuba was a definitive separation. There were no visits. In the '80s, '90s, it was incredibly difficult. I'm not the only one interested in this as a filmmaker - other Cuban filmmakers have dealt with it, too, because it's such a part of our reality.

It's often pointed out that in Cuban cinema there are too many comedies, but a sense of humor is so much part of the Cuban idiosyncrasy. Curiously, the films that have been censored the most have been humorous.

In all of my movies I've tried to address the need for man - not just Cubans - to have a dream and to fight for that dream, even when he doesn't achieve it. It's a form of happiness.