If you can get there, Cuba is paradise for cash-strapped filmmakers

Director Robert Pietri found the perfect location for his independent film production. It allowed him to shoot at about one-fifth the cost, and the local government was cooperative.

The location: Cuba, the new shoestring-budget cinema paradise. At least it was for Pietri, a 42-year-old New York University instructor who made a feature film in the Communist nation while on a cultural exchange teaching program.

Semper Fidel follows a U.S. Marine investigating the life of his father, a Cuban sports star. Pietri shot the movie from Feb. 22 to March 20 in his spare time. He was able to hire two well-known Cuban actors, Mario Limonta and Blanca Rosa Blanco for about $30 a day. He housed and fed cinematographer Eric Lin, lead actor James Alexandrou of England and Honduran actor Fermin Galeano Gaekel at a hotel in separate rooms for a month at a cost of $1,500. That included a coffee service for late-night meetings. Pietri also procured an old school bus that served as a grip truck/transport vehicle. Grand total: $25,000. And a lot of that went to travel expenses for the non-Cubans.