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The following are Oliver Stone's opening remarks from the March 29, 2004 discussion following a screening of LOOKING FOR FIDEL at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
Thank you all for being here. It is nice to be back. My thanks to the Council on Foreign Relations for hosting this evening, and to HBO for their support of this film.
I went to Cuba two years ago to make a documentary on Fidel Castro. I wanted to understand who the man was behind the icon, the imagery that the world has know for nearly 50 years. Stating the obvious, he seemed to me a very intriguing man, a fascinating man, loved and hated by millions of people around the world, but a man that few people know, beyond the glorification and demonization. I spent many hours talking with him about his life, his philosophy, his experiences, his motivations, and that resulted in the film Comandante, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in early 2003.
Then a year ago there was an enormous eruption over what is called the "crackdown" in Cuba - the arrest, trial and imprisonment of some 75 dissidents, and a rash of hijackings that resulted in the execution of 3 hijackers and the arrest of many others. The world condemned Cuba and Castro for these actions, while Cuba strongly defended itself.
HBO asked me to try to talk to Castro again and to find out what had happened and why. I did, and he gave me 30 hours of new interviews, which resulted in the making of this new film that you are about to see, LOOKING FOR FIDEL. I also interviewed dissidents who have not been arrested, the wives of imprisoned dissidents, and hijackers, to try to present as full a picture as possible of the situation in Cuba today.
I am not a journalist, but I understand that my interview with Castro last May is the only time that he has been interviewed on camera since the crackdown and been asked to defend himself and the actions his government took last year; so, I hope that this film will help illuminate to some degree the situation in Cuba, and I look forward to the discussion after the film.
Thank you.
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