00:00Could you talk about finding sort of
00:30the humanity in each one of them?
00:31Because you do that with Marta,
00:32you can really see it through her,
00:35and yet with some of the younger men and women,
00:38you see it as well.
00:39Yeah.
00:40Did you talk about casting?
00:40Because you had to gain trust, I would think.
00:42Yes, I mean, I've been going for a long time,
00:45since early 97.
00:46So, and then Ugo, who's the co-director,
00:52he was my, I was at the film school in Havana
00:56for teaching occasionally in the early 2000,
01:00yeah, 2000 to 2001, to 2005, something like that.
01:05And so I knew Cuba very well,
01:09I speak Spanish with a Cuban accent,
01:12and so when I love to dance,
01:18I'm not professional or anything like that,
01:20but I love to dance casino.
01:22Yeah.
01:22I find it, you know, and I love the Cuban music more than just the rhythms and the complexity
01:27of the rhythms, so that, and then I, as I say,
01:32Life is Dance, which was actually at the Miami Film Festival in 2013, I think,
01:36starring Carlos Acosta.
01:38Okay.
01:39And so that was, I'd been there through the whole, through that shooting in 2009.
01:47.
01:57.
01:59.
02:00and I like the music.
02:03That's for you.
02:05We dance, we're new, we're young.
02:08We can be in that.
02:10That's what I say.
02:13That competition, I'm the one who can dance.
02:17The most nervous of all of that people
02:20is this one who is here.
02:22I think we're going to be in the first place as always.
02:25I knew a lot about the culture
02:27and I said I love the dance myself.
02:29And when we were very aware
02:33when reggaeton started to come
02:35and the young ones kind of, this was a different dance.
02:38And I, you know, I didn't, you know,
02:41Ugo and I who were with my friend and the family
02:44that we went out with, we'd be sort of, hmm,
02:48I don't know what's going to happen here
02:50because the young ones were stopping learning
02:52the partner dancing, they were stopping doing...
02:54What time period was this around?
02:56This is quite, this is like 2011, 2010, you know, so...
03:00Which is sort of interesting
03:01because of the time, what was going on anyway.
03:03Yeah. Politically.
03:04I learned to see the casino when I was in the Polytechnic
03:13and I have a good memory of the casino and...
03:15I don't know, there's a little bit that I can get through my feet.
03:18No!
03:19No!
03:20No!
03:21No!
03:22No!
03:23No!
03:24No!
03:25No!
03:26No!
03:27It's something that I love.
03:28I work, I help my mom in my house
03:30and when I'm at 5.30 I'm crazy because I'm at the casino
03:32because I like to share with my dance friends.
03:34We enjoyed a lot, we're wrong, but we're there.
03:37And, you know, before Obama, there was like little businesses starting up
03:42and lots of different things happening
03:44and a lot of energy and stuff.
03:47And so then reggaeton was starting as well.
03:51And then, so they used to sometimes put reggaeton...
03:54I was out, you know, having a dancing casino or something,
03:57you'd be like, oh, here's the reggaeton.
03:59And then the kind of idea, we just wondered about what's going to happen
04:03if, you know, less people are dancing salsa
04:07and that beautiful kind of partner dancing.
04:29Yeah.
04:41Because there is something similar that happened to Glasgow a long time ago
04:44when people dance rock and roll.
04:46Yeah.
04:47And I'm sure in the States as well.
04:48Yeah.
04:49You know, everybody did partner dancing, rock and roll,
04:51all this kind of thing.
04:52Yeah.
04:53And then they stopped, stopping dancing that partner dancing in a way
04:57and dancing kind of like on your own more.
05:00Yeah.
05:01And losing that kind of the way that maybe men and women get together
05:05in a way like dance, you know, like dancing and having, you know,
05:08because like in Glasgow, you would go out and you meet people at the dance
05:12or something like that.
05:13But then it started to be, you weren't learning a dance.
05:16And I thought that's, this is happening to Cuba.
05:18Now people are dancing on their own and they're not,
05:20whereas the salsa and casino really brings people together.
05:23and they, you know, try lots of people together.
05:24If you are the second with us,
05:27then they were, first, we were home.
05:29After two days, I couldn't land out mais.
05:33I'm interacts with you holding up.
05:35Well, I am upset.
05:36I feel bad.
05:37I feel bad, I feel bad.
05:38I feel bad.
05:39I feel good.
05:40I feel good to be able to process of your career like a beat lady
05:42for your poorirement and happiness.
05:43You go to your table.
05:45We play on your table, you get your glasses.
05:46I know you skate around.
05:48You walk away.
05:50You play the church.
05:51especially ruede de casino which of course is a feature of the film and the and the and the
06:02importance to the young these young people not the very youngest but the young people
06:06to win the competition and and importance for that for for them in all the different
06:11areas and one of the fun for for us was going out and um finding our characters and like so
06:20we we took a while to find them we got to you know like so there would be a lovely place where um
06:26going to dance with with Marta and Felix you know the beautiful place that they are with the tree
06:30so we'd go we went there quite a few times and then we hung out we danced and we just still active
06:36yeah yeah it was it was still like um you know people would go there like Marta she'd go there
06:42and it was like a really important place for them um and and and Marta just seemed like the perfect
06:48person so we just picked on her and then Felix who who just likes to be debonair and just like
06:54so we were just picking the characters
06:56did that whole thing with them and their relationship happen all during that
07:13when they separate you know they seemed like they were that's what you that's the lovely thing
07:17about documentary you pick your characters and then you know they were dancing together then
07:21suddenly Felix didn't go to the dance and then he was going another dance and then he was trying to
07:25play this down and then Marta was going what happened and then being able to tell that kind of story and
07:31then while she was there um you know while she went was babysitting for her daughter
07:37she had talked about her husband her husband was there because and that kind of was funny you know
07:42how he he used to get when she actually went dancing again and she couldn't when she was younger but
07:47when they met they were dancing a lot so all these things that kind of happened on the way
07:51you
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