Ibrahim tells his story without a grain of complaint, and this was true for all of the band members. This is very much part of the Cuban spirit and soul.

The reason I never wrote a novel is that I don't have what it takes to write characters, so they would all be talking differently. I lack that ability. If I were writing, they would all talk like me, and that's no good.

Film is a very, very powerful medium. It can either confirm the idea that things are wonderful the way they are, or it can reinforce the conception that things can be changed.

On the contrary a film can promote the idea of change without any political message whatsoever but in its form and language can tell people that they can change their lives and contribute to progressive changes in the world.

The last adventure left on this planet is creativity because we've been everywhere. There's not much left to explore. But there's a lot of exploration left in the human imagination.

If you travel a lot, if you like roaming about in order to lose yourself, you can end up in the strangest places. I think it must be a kind of built-in radar, which often takes me to places that are either peculiarly quiet or peculiar in a quiet sort of way.

I'm getting a little bored by the juxtaposition of American and other cinema. I no longer think this division is as true as it might have been in the 1980s, or the early part of the 90s.