“Ruzowitzky’s cold-eyed movie combines keen observation with political/historical critique – but one at the expense of the other,” wrote Time Out. “Beautifully filmed, sometimes funny but ultimately tragic,” opined The Daily Telegraph. “This movie has a fable-like quality, an engaging simplicity, and feels like back- to-basics storytelling,” explained The Guardian. “An Austrian arthouse picture and an exceptionally dour, depressing one at that,” snapped the Daily Mail.
A darkly engaging parable that the director himself described as an “Alpine Western”. It seems the hills are still alive in Austria.The Inheritors is out on general release, certificate 15 95 mins. Glasgow Latitude of Smolensk.

Attitude of Barcelona.” The airport banner was more than usually apt on Wednesday, when the European Cup seemed to be the sole preoccupation of this football-crazy city. Even the photographer claimed not to know the names Ferrer and Gonzalez “D’they play for Rangers, love?” he enquired Not a good start

It got worse. I arrived at the bustling headquarters of BBC Music Live to interview these two legendary musicians, along with Andy Kershaw – whose World Service World of Music series is to broadcast two special programmes of their music Andy passed me on his way out. The interpreter had disappeared somewhere and the Cubans had gone to a different hotel, nobody knew which. But eventually Andy hove back into view clutching a pint, so we started with him.
He was looking forward to meeting them. They are right up his street; he is famous for his eclectic taste in music and his ability to be in the wrong place at the right time (as anyone who heard his radio reports from Rwanda will remember) He knows Cuba well. “When I first went there, there were only a few shops – and they might offer only a tin of peas and a pair of shoes.

Now it’s become a dollar economy, full of designer labels and sex tourists.”For 30 years, Cuba was isolated, its identity intensified by lack of outside influence. Then, three years ago, as things began to change, the American Ry Cooder decided to record some traditional Cuban music. At the time, the singer Ibrahim Ferrer was selling peanuts and shining shoes. Ruben Gonzalez, already 80, had given up playing – his ancient piano had succumbed to damp and woodworm, while arthritis was having a similar effect on him Brought in off the street, he played again. The resultant CD, The Buena Vista Social Club, was a surprise hit. It sold a million copies and the renaissance began.So what did Kershaw think of them, musically? His answer was coloured by the fact that, though the World Service is his passion, he also has a weekly Radio 1 show. “When you work for a station obsessed by 15-to- 24-year-olds, it’s great to play records by octogenarians.

Ruben Gonzalez has made it hip to be in your eighties.”And then they were there, two great-grandfathers with perfect manners and broad smiles. With them came several family minders and our interpreter.Gonzalez is tiny. In an oversized grey suit, his red tie decorated with a grand piano, he has a look of Napoleon about him, with his white hair brushed forwards and an air of serene, shining confidence: even his arthritis is in retreat, vanquished by constant exercise. He has a new Polish piano – “Better than a Steinway!” he insisted – and his long, gnarled fingers are constantly moving Indeed, so is he. “No, the touring doesn’t make me tired,” he said, “I love this travelling. I never want to stay still again.”Beside him, in cosy fleece and trademark flat-cap, Ferrer is but a lad In fact, he is 72. Born at a dance and orphaned at 12, he first sang professionally at 13.

By 1962, doing well, he was touring Russia and dining with Khrushchev on the night before the Cuban missile crisis broke. What did he make of Khrushchev? “Magnifico! We really took to each other. He had this lovely bald head, shiny, like it was polished.” But the crisis put paid to his international career as a singer – he had thought permanently.Now he is back, famous beyond the strictures of politics and being well- rewarded for doing what he loves best: singing bolero. The bolero, he explained, is a very slow, persuasive love song.”I know I’m not the right age to sing it,” he chuckled, “but it is for when a man falls in love with a woman and wants to conquer her, and for making peace between old friends who have fallen out, things like that.