The 10 part series  “In Cuba” had a very different goal.

I wanted to see how Cubans live, beyond the limitations of mainstream media reporting.

I had a camera, a sound equipment, I spoke Spanish and was eager to go around, meeting people and following leads to great stories.

I was there for a first visit and started shooting stories with people I met in the streets, in the factories, in their houses and so forth. I had decided to visit every single neighborhood in Havana so I could get a good sense of that society.

Two days before my scheduled return, I was invited to edit an American documentary about Fidel and ended up staying longer. It was then soon time to the Havana Film festival. There, representatives from the Film School invited me to be thesis advisor there. So I returned 6 months later to teach at Escuela Interncional de Cine y TV and also shot more stories, this time mostly in the rural area where the school was located.

In these 2 trips, which resulted in 65 hours of dailies, I met a wide span of people who shared many perspectives. From old, hard liner, regime backing ladies wanting me to go to jail because I wasn’t supposed to be filming reality, to rebel artists who felt lonely because “all my friends either flew or ‘were dissapeared’ ”. My interest was on people, on how different people live their different  lives, in Cuba.

So I met, talked and put together stories on kids, bean farmers, propaganda poster factory workers, crowds of tourists, self defined “typical Cubans”,  gas station workers who had Schwarzenneger as an idol, “because he is very kind”,  an ex mafia driver now turned into old car afficcionado, a group of compulsive novel readers,  etc… The “in Cuba” series is made of these encounters with great people, who share their unique perspectives on life.