By the Cuba Journal staff
Legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola visited Cuba this week at the invitation of the International School of Cinema and Television in San Antonio de los Baños.
Coppola, whose portfolio includes the Godfather films and Apocalypse Now, among others, said he had been to Cuba many times.
Much of The Godfather II was famously set in Cuba during the reign of Fulgencio Batista, though that film’s Cuba scenes were shot in the Dominican Republic.
While on the island this week, Coppola spoke with a group of third-year students on some of their theses, the “future of cinema” and how to address new generations, according to a government release.
Coppola is indeed no stranger to Cuba; the director, along with fellow film luminary Martin Scorsese, helped spearhead the release a controversial Soviet-Cuban film called I Am Cuba in 1995.
And he is no stranger to the wider Caribbean, either, having owned a number of hotels in the wider region including the Blancaneaux Lodge and the Turtle Inn, both in Belize.