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Buena Vista Social Club documentary

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Buena Vista Social Club: Adios

Original title

Buena Vista Social Club

Year

1999

Running time

100 min.

Country

United States

Director

Wim Wenders

Screenwriter

Nick Gold

Cast

Music

Ry Cooder

Cinematography

Jörg Widmer

Producer

Co-production United States-Germany-Cuba-France;

Road Movies Filmproduktion, Kintop Pictures, ARTE

Genre

Documentary | Music Documentary. Jazz

Synopsis

A group of legendary Cuban musicians, some as old as their nineties, were brought together by Ry Cooder to record a CD. In this film, we see and hear some of the songs being recorded in Havana. There is also footage from concerts in Amsterdam and New York City's Carnegie Hall. In addition, many of the individual musicians talk about their lives in Cuba and about how they got started in music.

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Rankings Position

#45 Best Music Documentaries
#90 Best Documentaries in the history of film

Awards: 1999: Nominated for Oscar: Best Documentary

1999: 3 BAFTA Nominations: Best Foreign Language Film, Sound and Music

1999: National Board of Review: Best Documentary

1999: European Film Awards: Best Documentary

1999: New York Film Critics Circle: Best Documentary

1999: Los Angeles Film Critics Association: Best Documentary

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Critics' reviews

"A poetry of love, longing and affirmation bleeds through the music of Cuba, and some of the best sounds the island ever created are captured with embracing humanity."

Peter Stack: SFgate
"Being able to hear this kind of playing is a special moment in time, one we don't want to end and one that we're privileged to experience."

Kenneth Turan: Los Angeles Times
"I've never seen another movie that so clearly expresses the sensual sustenance that great folk culture provides its practitioners"

Peter Rainer: Vulture
"The movie comes closer to pure happiness than anything else in the theatres at the moment, and it has an intriguing and moving subtext: the Cubans' buried but irrepressible love of things American"

David Denby: The New Yorker
"It is a touching story, and the musicians (some over 90 years old) still have fire and grace onstage, but, man, does the style of this documentary get in the way."

Roger Ebert: Chicago Sun-Times
"The concert scenes find the stage awash in such intense joy, camaraderie and nationalist pride that you become convinced that making music is a key to longevity and spiritual well-being."

Stephen Holden: The New York Times
"Wenders lets the music and the sprightly people who make it speak for themselves, although the director's ongoing fascination with the urban environment is in top form"

Eddie Cockrell: Variety
"The players and their stories are as wonderful as the music, and the filmmaking is uncommonly sensitive and alert."

Jonathan Rosenbaum: Chicago Reader

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Ranking Lists Position

33 My Favorite Documentaries (149)

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Buena Vista Social Club documentary

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