It's very hard to find critics or a magazine today that will publish material that is genuinely independent and written without any concern about being cut off some distributor's list or not be invited or flown into screenings.

The most political decision you make is where you direct people's eyes. In other words, what you show people, day in and day out, is political...And the most politically indoctrinating thing you can do to a human being is to show him, every day, that there can be no change.

The Cuban people have an amazingly strong and unbroken spirit.

In this age of consumerism film criticism all over the world - in America first but also in Europe - has become something that caters for the movie industry instead of being a counterbalance.

Filmmaking is really connected to life and all of the expressions that different arts found to allow access to life. Filmmaking touches on all of it.

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.

But I think that the spirit of protectionism would be the grave of European cinema. You cannot protect something by building a fence around it and thinking that this will help it survive.