Puerto Rican Benicio del Toro in Cuba to Shoot New Film

The actor Benicio del Toro is in Cuba visiting locations and coordinating the shooting of one of the stories of the film ‘Siete dias en La Habana’ (Seven Days in Havana), in which he will make his debut as director.

After he arrived in Cuba last Wednesday, the Puerto Rican actor toured several locations in Old Havana accompanied by Spanish producer Cristina Zumarraga.

Del Toro is part of a group of seven film directors that will make the Hispanic-French film, whose plot is made up of seven stories as well. Cuban writer and journalist Leonardo Padura will coordinate the screenplay.

The list of directors includes Spanish Julio Medem, Cuban Juan Carlos Tabio, Argentineans Gaspar Noe and Pablo Trapero, Palestinian Elia Suleiman, and French Laurent Cantet.

Benicio del Toro visited Cuba in 2009, when he was awarded the Tomas Gutierrez Alea International Prize, granted by the Cuban Writers and Artists Association (UNEAC). On that occasion, the Puerto Rican actor was accompanied by Robert Duvall, James Caan and Bill Murray. He received a prize for his main role in the film ‘Che’, directed by Steven Soderbergh.

In December 2008, del Toro presented the two parts of the film ‘Che’ at the 30th International Festival of the New Latin American Cinema in Havana.

Benicio, who won an Oscar in the Best Actor category in the film Traffic, is one of the candidates —along with Mexican Gael Garcia Bernal— to play Mexican Pancho Villa in a film by Emir Kusturica. Based on the book ‘Los amigos de Pancho Villa’ (Pancho Villa´s friends) by US novelist of Mexican origin James Carlos Blake, the full-length film will be titled ‘Los siete amigos de Pancho Villa y la mujer de los seis dedos’ (Pancho Villa´s Seven Friends and the Woman with Six Fingers).

The film deals with the life of the Mexican revolutionary leader, while its music was made by the No Smoking Orchestra rock band, led by Kusturica himself.