Traveling with a small film crew, Wim Wenders accompanied his old friend Ry Cooder—who did the fantastic score for Paris, Texas—on a trip to Havana. Once there, Wenders immersed himself in the world of Cuban music. Over the course of several months, he observed and accompanied the musicians—first at home in Havana; weeks later, in April 1998, on their trip to Amsterdam for the first public performance of the Buena Vista Social Club (who had never played together outside a studio); then, in July 1998, to their triumphal concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall. “I thought, I’ll shoot a documentary,” Wenders has said, “and here we were, about to witness a fairy tale that no one could have imagined in this form.” The film became a cinematic sensation and an international success, garnering an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature.