Filmmaker Coppola “Happy” about Cuba’s New Phase of Relationship with U.S.

“I am very happy, I think it’s wonderful,” Coppola told EFE during his visit to International School of Cinema and Television of San Antonio de los Banos or EICTV, 50 km (31 miles) west of Havana.

“I thought it was going to happen during the term of President (Jimmy) Carter (...) Now we have (Barack) Obama, in my opinion a great president, and I know he feels we should have relations with Cuba, and I repeat, I am happy that we are seeing it materialize,” said Coppola, who was awarded the Princess of Asturias Prize for arts in 2015.

“I know there will be an embassy in Washington, this is good; Cuba has always been close to the United States, for better or for worse, but close,” added the six-time Academy Award winner.

The veteran added, “American filmmakers would like to come here to make films.”

Coppola, 76, director of classics including “The Godfather,” “Apocalypse Now” and “Dracula,” reached EICTV on Tuesday to meet with students at the institute.

“I am very happy to be in Cuba. I have always enjoyed being with students; when you spend time with them, you learn a lot, because you become a student as well,” said Coppola.

Accompanied by son Roman Coppola, also an Oscar winner, and the latter’s family, Coppola celebrated on Tuesday the birthday of one of his grandchildren in the institute’s park, surrounded by young people of different nationalities, and promised to cook “real” pasta accompanied by home-brewed wines.

Coppola first visited EICTV – set up in 1986 by Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Argentine filmmaker Fernando Birri and Cuban filmmaker Julio Garcia Espinosa, backed by then President Fidel Castro – in 1989 for a workshop on scriptwriting and returned again in 1993.

The center is considered the most important academic project of the Foundation of New Latin American Cinema and was presided over by Marquez until his death in July 2014.