We all remember the earthquake in Peru in the late 1970s. Santiago Álvarez was there and, thanks to the camera of his colleagues from Noticiero, he managed to film a good number of excellent shots of the event … During a visit that Pepín Rodríguez and I paid to his office … he said to us: “If you’ve got any spare footage of the earthquake, could you put something simple and quick together? I’ve had a story by a Peruvian writer in mind for a while and I’d like to do something with it.” We immediately looked at each other and asked him for the story. It was about an indigenous man who starts working as a “pongo”, that is, a servant, and about his master, the owner of a huge mansion in Peru. The indigenous servant dreams of the punishment his master will receive after both of them have died … Pepín at the animation desk and I at the Truca, separated by nearly 60 metres, in different buildings but connected via the internal telephone, we began working on the images on the basis of the story … During those hours we used whatever came to hand: glass, plates, newspaper cut-outs, acetate sheets, transparent paper, even Vaseline, to give shape to all the wild ideas that came to mind. The result was truly a great experiment. Santiago loved it. And so El sueño del Pongo was created.

Jorge Pucheaux, Enciclopedia digital del audiovisual cubano, endac.org