I wouldn't separate their lives and their history from the music itself. That music is so emotional and rich and so full of their life stories that you just can't divide it up. Music always plays a big part in a Wim Wenders film. What came across for me when I heard the sIbum for the first time with no idea yet who these people really were, was a feeling of lightness, of sheer joy and carefree abandon. And there was also a deeply felt sense of experience and honesty about it, like in no other music I knew.
Music is a constant source of inspiration and energy.
And my favonte part of the whole filmmaking process is that precious time during the editing process when you see image and music married for the first time. It is, of course. Ruben, Ibrahim, Compay, Pio, Omara and Eliades became more and more like fictional characters, and when we finally arrived in New York, it felt like we had actually told a story and finished a narrative circle. We shot on Digi-Beta and almost entirely on Steadicam, which gave it a great fluidity and immediacy. What counts, in the end, is the attitude of the people behind the camera towards those in front.