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ANDY GARCIA:
“To me this is a movie that reflects all the classical elements of the films that I’ve responded to in my life; Casablanca, Dr Zhivago. Its look into an end of an era and a celebration of a culture I hold very dear. It’s about having to leave the thing you most cherish. Before Fico leaves, the soldier says to him, ‘You can’t take Cuba with you.’ But you can, and I did.”
ENRIQUE MURCIANO:
“This is a personal story for me in many ways. My parents are Cuban exiles. What you see Andy Garcia’s character go through in the movie, my grandparents went through. They lost everything they had, and came to this country with nothing.”
NESTOR CARBONELL:
“I’ve admired Andy for so long as an actor, and to be involved in his passion project was a dream. My great-grandfather led the debates that paved the way for the 1940 Cuban Democratic Constitution, which was modeled after the US Constitution. Ironically enough my character is trying to reinstate that Constitution, albeit in a revolutionary and violent manner.”
INES SASTRE:
“I think it was very brave of Andy to take a Spanish actress who is doing her first film for America and sell her to the producer. He trusted me and thought that I was right for the role of Aurora. She is so human, and anyone who has lost something or someone can relate to her. It was great being a part of Andy’s dream.”
GARCIA:
“There’s such a lack of understanding of what happened in that time period. Most people think the Cuban Revolution was a Marxist Revolution and it was not. It turned into that. That’s not what people were fighting for.”
MURCIANO:
“The one thing I hope that this movie does is open some eyes, and people will walk away from it thinking, ‘I got to see Cuba’s history from a different vantage point.’ I feel that films that have dealt with this subject matter have romanticized Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara – he has become the face of the underdog, but Che’s history and Cuba’s history, especially at that time, is one that people haven’t reported on accurately. I want this movie to create some kind of awareness.”
CARBONELL:
“Che Guevara is romanticized as this hero who wanted change and equality for everybody, meanwhile nobody talks about this man who presided over hundreds of assassinations in a prison in Cuba at the beginning of 1959. I see far too many t-shirts with Che Guevara on them, but as soon as you inform [the person wearing them] they go, ‘Oh, I’m going to throw it away.’ In terms of informing people, I just hope this movie opens their eyes to the past and also the future.”
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THE CONCEPT:
