To anybody who remembers with pleasure that plaintive, wailing slide guitar theme Ry Cooder wrote for Paris, Texas, the very idea of Buena Vista Social Club must seems mouth-watering: Wim Wenders' latest film is a documentary about Cooder's musical adventures in Cuba.

In 1996, Cooder rounded up some of the legendary old-timers from the Cuban music scene to collaborate on his album, which was also called The Buena Vista Club. The musicians in question included such extravagantly colourful figures as the still nimble-fingered 90-year-old singer-guitarist, Comapy Segungo, and the chanteuse Omara Portuondo, who is affectionately known as the Cuban Edith Piaf.

Intrigued and inspired by these characters, Wenders ventured to Havana to film them (and Cooder) in action. He also recorded their concerts in New York and Amsterdam last summer.

"Music is a treasure hunt," says Cooder. "You dig and dig and sometimes you find something. In Cuba, the music flows like a river."

Pursuing this metaphor, Wenders adds that he wanted to make a film that would "just float on this river... not interfering with it... just drifting along." Geoffrey Macnab