In 1960, a year after the Revolution, Ivens was invited to Cuba for no particular reasons. Fidel Castro welcomed him saying: "It's good you are here, you are a practical man and we need men like you." Later, he was asked to make a film on the Revolution. Ivens felt like a stranger in a reality he had not personally experienced, so he counter-proposed a project that was soon accepted: "Let me travel around the country and give me the means to film my trip, in the same way as a journalist or a writer would write his notes. I don't need much: a camera, two or three assistants some students from the Institute that can take a chance to learn. And, most of all, let me free to make a sort of cinematographic notes, without thinking about the editing or the final result." The shooting was made with a small troupe of young filmmaker s from the I.C.A.I.C . (Cuban Institute of Art and Cinematogr aphic Industry), along the triangular route Havana - Trinidad - Santiago de Cuba.The tour goes on in absolute freedom, across the countr y and the Revolution, without too much worrying about how and what the camera is framing, to let the images convey a real sense of spontaneity and immediacy.
