Buena Vista Social Club

Synopsis

Cuba's rich and colourful past comes vividly to life in this legendary, Oscar-nominated documentary from director Wim Wenders (PARIS, TEXAS, WINGS OF DESIRE).

The Grammy Award-winning Buena Vista Social Club album produced by Ry Cooder, remains the biggest-selling world music album ever. It showcases the talents of a dream team of veterans from Cuban music's golden age and it introduced the rhythms of Son, Bolero and Danzon to a whole new audience, making instant international stars of Ibrahim Ferrer, Rubén González, Eliades Ochoa, Omara Portuondo and Compay Segundo.

Never a regular band, The Buena Vista Social Club had gone their separate ways after that sensational album but in this extraordinary film Wenders intimately documents Ry Cooder's return to Havana, encountering these musical legends again as they look back to the halcyon days of Cuba's music scene, when the rich and famous travelled from all over the world to listen to them. In the climax their music comes alive once again, as they rehearse for their first - and only - performance in America, at New York's Carnegie Hall. More than a musical occasion that historic sell-out show is the uplifting finale to this documentary, which remains one of the greatest musical films ever made.

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Reviews

"Wenders is left free to effortlessly transfer the magic of sound to the medium of moving pictures"

EMPIRE

"wonderful"

PHILIP FRENCH, THE OBSERVER

"The film that spawned a phenomenon, Buena Vista Social Club is a delight"

FILM FOUR

"a blinder"

TIME OUT

"a film of ineffable sweetness and glorious music... breathtaking... moving, uplifting"

PETER BRADSHAW, THE GUARDIAN

"sunshine for the soul... opulent, organic and as intoxicating as a rum binge, dripping with joie de vivre and rumbling with passion. Terrific, truly liberating stuff"

TOTAL FILM