By Michael Fleming
NEW YORK (Variety) - Andy Garcia will make his feature directorial debut on "The Lost City," a drama set in the waning golden days of Havana.
Garcia will star with Robert Duvall, Dustin Hoffman, Benicio Del Toro, Javier Bardem, Benjamin Bratt and Tomas Milian.
The independently financed $20 million picture, written by Cuban exile author G. Cabrera Infante, encompasses elements from several of his novels, including "Three Trapped Tigers."
While Garcia directed a documentary on Cuban musician Cachao, he's chosen an epic-sized canvas for his first drama.
"I have been developing this for 10 years, and now we're ready to go," Garcia said.
He'll play the owner of a nightspot, one of three brothers caught in Cuba's turbulent transition from the increasingly oppressive regime of Fulgencio Batista to the Marxist government of Fidel Castro in the late 1950s. Castro's regime ultimately leads the club owner to flee to New York.
Bratt will play one of Garcia's brothers, and either Del Toro or Bardem will likely play the other brother. Garcia said both thesps are committed to the film, but which roles they'll play depends on availability when filming begins at Miami Beach in April.
Duvall will play the antagonistic head of Batista's secret police force. Hoffman will portray Meyer Lansky, who with fellow gangster Lucky Luciano crafted the mob's infiltration into Havana nightlife.
"This is a story that has never really been told from the point of view of the people who lived there," Garcia said. "It is driven by the tapestry of music, dance and culture, with a love story and conflicts between the brothers enveloped within."
Under his CineSon banner, Garcia previously produced and starred in HBO's "For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story," a biopic of the Cuban musician's struggle to stay afloat when Castro instituted Marxism. Like Sandoval and "Lost City" scribe Infante, the Cuban-born Garcia has lived in exile since his family fled to Miami Beach; he was 5 years old at the time.
"We left everything behind, arrived with nothing but the
clothes on our backs," Garcia recalled. "The complications of
exile were very prevalent in my household, and one of the
by-products is a nostalgia for the country you left behind.
I've recorded music, collected it and read volumes about the
country's history. There is an emotional boycott that hasn't
allowed me to visit, but this project is a way to inject the
passion and sorrow I feel."
