Francis Ford Coppola cooks pasta in Cuba

Acclaimed film director Francis Ford Coppola paid a visit to Cuba’s International School of Film and Television and made a hearty pasta dish as he sought to inspire the country’s next generation of filmmakers.

The American director of The Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now has been meeting with students at the school in San Antonio De Los Banos this week to discuss movie making.

On Thursday, taking time out from the curriculum, the award-winning filmmaker went into the kitchen to cook some pasta with ingredients he brought himself.

Surrounded by kitchen staff as well as students, the director tossed salt into huge pots of boiling water, threw in chopped herbs and stirred the sauce.

“Look at me. I like to eat and ... and when I was their age I had no money, nothing. That’s why I told them, that’s why I’m so heavy; [it] is because I could just eat spaghetti and cheese, which was cheap,” he said.

“So I learned how to cook, so that I could eat and I would call my mother and say ‘How do you make this?’ or when I saw something that I liked I would always learn how to do it.”

The 76 year old has previously shot his films in a host of exotic locations, and with Washington and Havana set to restore diplomatic relations, Coppola said Cuba would be a “wonderful place” to make a movie.

“It’s a beautiful place. It’s a beautiful country,” he said.

“Havana is a beautiful city.”