Films and Commentary from Saul Landau

“This is the culture that kids grow up on,” Landau told Press TV’s U.S. Desk on Saturday when asked where the culture of violence in the United States comes from.

"What did Cuba do to us?," Landau asks. "Well, the answer, I think, is that they were disobedient, in our hemisphere. And they did not ask permission to take away property. They took it away. They nationalized property. And the United States ... has never forgiven them."

The writer Alice Walker, actor Danny Glover and filmmaker Saul Landau, among other U.S. personalities joined the Cuban intellectual Miguel Barnet and a group of scholars of his country, who traveled to San Francisco to participate in the 30th Congress of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), in the claim for the return of The Five to their homeland.

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The filmmaker Landau defended the innocence of the Cuban Five and called for their release and to strengthen efforts to achieve their final return to Cuba.

"Try telling a Cuban: 'You should pay higher rent, or pay for your own healthcare,'" said Saul Landau, a professor and filmmaker. "Cubans bitch and moan, like citizens everywhere, but there is no serious opposition to the current government," he told Al Jazeera. "They do not face a legitimacy crisis at home."

"They (the Mayan Indians) have a lot to teach us. My experience down there filming was a very humbling experience for me," Landau said. "There is no electricity. You are totally deprived of your biological comforts."

Speaking to Press TV's U.S. Desk on Sunday, Landau said, "President Obama has made very minor cuts in military budget but nothing that basically alters the fundamental position of the United States abroad."