Emmy-Winner Juan Mandelbaum on Filming Paquito D’Rivera and Documenting Latino Joy
By Sydney Woogerd – Oct 7, 2025
Five years, five different video editors and a little less than a quarter of a million dollars later, EMMY award winning filmmaker Juan Mandelbaum finally premiered his newest documentary film on Sept. 26.
“Paquito D’Rivera: From Carne y Frijol to Carnegie Hall” is a visual and auditory accumulation of the life and work of Cuban-born immigrant and 16-time Grammy and Latin Grammy award winning clarinetist, saxophonist and composer Paquito D’Rivera. At the Museum of Fine Arts Boston this fall, Mandelbaum shared his 60-minute feature, filmed in New York, Boston, Miami and Uruguay for the first time on the big screen.
“When you’ve worked for five years on something, and suddenly you see it in such a beautiful projection, such great sound, that is such a thrill,” Mandelbaum said. “It was very special for me. It was just very, very special.”
74-year-old Mandelbaum is Argentinian-born and has worked in the film industry for 43 years. During the military dictatorship and civil unrest in Argentina in the 70s, he immigrated to the U.S. from Buenos Aires to get his Bachelor of Arts in Communications at the University of Pennsylvania. After graduating, he moved to Boston where he taught filmmaking at both Boston University and the Art Institute of Boston, all the while directing and producing his own films. In 1989 he started his company, Geovision, specializing in public health communications for the Latino community where he works as the president and creative director to this day.
Mandelbaum paints the vibrant and humorous evolution of D’Rivera, from his rise to fame as a member of the Afro-Cuban band, Irakere in the 70s to his collaborations and performances across the U.S. and Latin American today.
On a weather-worn wooden patio chair, Mandelbaum sat down to talk in the backyard of his Boston home since 1993. He spoke about how to capture the soul of a person on film, the importance of highlighting immigrant success stories and an especially vocal Uruguayan donkey featured in the film.
The following is our conversation which has been edited for length and clarity.
Can you give a description of what this film is about?
This film, “Paquito D’Rivera: From Carne y Frijol to Carnegie Hall,” is a portrait of a great Cuban musician – saxophone and clarinet are his instruments – who has had an amazing trajectory, and whom I’ve admired for a very long time. And I came to the idea of making the film because I felt that a lot of the films being made on the Latino community were about very serious, deep, difficult issues that affect the community, and I think those films need to be made. But there’s a whole other side of Latino culture and music that is very joyful, that also needs to be portrayed and shared.
Why did you choose D’Rivera as your subject?
He has such an appealing personality, and he’s such an amazing musician and so versatile. He’s not stuck, some musicians who are successful, they keep doing the same thing again and again, right? And he doesn’t. He’s not interested in that. He’s constantly reinventing himself. Also, I love his sound, and it’s very hard for a musician to develop a specific sound as characteristic as Paquito. You can play me 10 things, and I’ll say this [is] Paquito, this is Paquito, and this is Paquito, and I probably will have no idea who the others are. And that’s something that I admire a lot.
How do you go about capturing the soul of a subject in your documentaries?
You have to be a good listener. You want to research that person and you want to establish trust, and then from there, see if they will open up. And respecting their stories, I’m not one to push people to tell me their darkest secrets. No, I don’t care about that. I really care more about showing them honestly and hopefully choosing people whose stories transcend, in a way, and can reach other people’s souls, in Paquito’s case, through his music, through his personality, his humor. Sometimes it’s very difficult, sometimes people don’t open up as much. You have to keep trying. You have to [be] patient.
After finding your subject, what is your next move in your filmmaking process; was this time any different?
There’s no set rule. It depends on the subject, on the opportunity. I usually have an idea in my mind that I [try] to execute. And things happen along the way, and it changes, but many times it’s very close to the idea that I had in my mind. Every film is different. I don’t do films with a cookie-cutter approach. There are filmmakers who, in a way, make the same film again and again. They just have a formula. I don’t have a formula. I see things that happen and then I take advantage.
COVID-19 started early on in your filming process, forcing you to postpone the documentary. Was there ever a point during quarantine where you were worried that you wouldn’t be able to finish?
I really didn’t know how it was going to continue, but we didn’t know how the world was going to continue at that point. So it was very uncertain. And then I started getting the support from Latino Public Broadcasting, and it’s really important to point out their role, because it was essential in the making of this film. Latino Public Broadcasting is one of five minority consortia. Each one of those used to get a pool of money from corporations for Public Broadcasting, and they would fund projects for public television that showed their communities and were made by filmmakers from the community. So they got very excited about the project.
Consistently, you direct and produce films that specifically highlight the lives of the Latino community. Do you feel like your experience as an immigrant from Argentina influenced how you made this film?
A lot of my films have to do with Latino subjects, but from all over Latin America. I’ve done films in Brazil and Chile and Mexico, Puerto Rico and then the US. First of all, knowing the language helps. [The film] blends between Paquito talking in English and talking in Spanish. We communicate, obviously, very well in Spanish. There’s an understanding that the subjects have, that we have a shared culture, shared language, that we know of each other’s history. He doesn’t have to start explaining to me what happened in Cuba, I don’t have to explain to him what happened in Argentina. He knows that. And so I think that helps make it authentic.
Occasionally during the film there would be scenes of D’Rivera speaking in Spanish and then in English. Was this an intentional choice or did it come naturally?
Some subjects like talking about his son, I really wanted it to be in Spanish, because the way he would describe it would be more personal. And I think some, like when he talks about Cuba, (it’s the) same thing. It wasn’t necessarily planned: “OK, today I’m going to do it in Spanish.” It’s just whatever was the way it was coming out. The first interview was mostly in English. And then I said, “No, we can switch back and forth.”
Can you think of any funny or unexpected situations that happened during filming the documentary?
Some are in the film, like (there is a moment) when the donkey brays (during an interview) in Uruguay and I say, “OK, let’s go visit the donkey.” And it’s such a sweet scene. And [Paquito] loves animals too. He had a cat (for) forever that died a few years ago, (it was) devastating. There’s pictures of him with elephants, with all kinds of different animals. At one point, I thought about making an animal sequence with Paquito.
This film is premiering at a time where immigrants’ lives are in the spotlight. Taking into account the current ICE raids and the general political vigor surrounding immigration, do you feel like this film is your way of putting your flag in the ground and making your opinion known?
[The film] is showing the vibrancy of a Latino musician and the joy that he brings, and how that needs to be encouraged. If people see this and realize this comes from a particular culture of people who immigrated and came searching for asylum, and now we’re shutting the doors to all people who are trying to come here, and to a point where people won’t want to come here anymore. That’s going to make us poorer in so many ways.
Are you worried about how this film will be reacted to in the wider political conversation about immigration?
No, no. I think this film is a film that can appeal to any audience. I mean, there are people who have a different opinion about Cuba, and that’s fine. I mean, I could make a whole film about Paquito’s feelings towards Cuba, but I just put in enough there so that you realize that he left. I was aware of that as I was making the film, and I wanted to portray enough of it so you knew how he felt about it, but I didn’t want that to take over, and I didn’t want people to either be in favor of the film because of that or reject it because of that.
While watching the film on the big screen for the first time, what was something that you wished people would like most or were most excited for people to see?
My was “how are they going to connect with the film?” And as soon as it started, I realized they were connecting with the film. People were chuckling. They were laughing. I was like, “Yeah, they’re in for a ride.” And that was very exciting.
Other than COVID-19, what difficulties did you encounter when filming?
Most of my films [are] edited by one person. This one, I had five editors. So that was a challenge, because every time you start with a new editor, they have to watch all the footage. Otherwise, how are they going to come up with ideas or thoughts? And also working with different crews that I didn’t know. I like to work with people that I trust, so I don’t have to worry about what they’re doing. I had to worry about what they were doing. So sometimes I didn’t realize until later what they had done, and you can’t just refilm.
What is a hope that you have for younger Latino filmmakers?
I hope that they will have the opportunity to make their films (at all) and to tell stories that need to be told. But also that they will have a broad enough perspective not to be limited to the more obvious stories. Right now what’s happening with immigration and with ICE is so tragic, but do you want everybody making films about that? No. I just hope, not just for Latinos, but for all underrepresented communities that they have the opportunity to tell their stories, but all of their stories. They’re joyful stories, they’re tragic stories, they’re sad stories, they’re hopeful stories.
The film will be showing at the Seattle Latino Film Festival on Oct. 13. Where else will people be able to watch “Paquito D’Rivera: From Carne y Frijol to Carnegie Hall”?
I’m waiting to hear from other festivals. I am hoping that it will get traction in festivals. Hopefully the word will get out about the film. (It will be showing on) PBS (in the) next year sometime. It would be great if it gets a buzz so that by time it shows on television there’s already some reviews. And then after that, musicians can see it, people who are into Latino culture can see it. Hopefully, there’ll be other places where it’ll be available.
Sydney Woogerd 