Last month, Che Guevara's old Cuban friend and travelling companion Alberto Granado was denied entry to the US for the Sundance World Premiere of Motorcycle Diaries, Walter Salles' film based on his 1952 journey round South America on the back of a Norton 500 with Guevara.

Thankfully, the 81-year-old did make it to Berlin for Friday's Panorama premiere of Travelling With Che Guevara, Gianni Mini's documentary about the famous journey.

"I'm very glad that this movie has been shown here (in Berlin)," Granado said. "This film shows what I have been saying again and again - that Che Guevara was a real person; a person of flesh and blood."

In Berlin, Granado paid fulsome tribute to Salles's film (controversially plucked from the Berlinale competition and now set to receive its European premiere in Cannes.) He was on location with for much of the shoot of The Motorcycle Diaries. "

Walter sees the story through a very beautiful lens. He shows how we both developed. At the start, I was the older one, the one with more responsibility, but more and more, he (Che Guevara) assumed this responsibility'in Walter's movie and in Gianni's documentary, you see how everything became too small for him. First medicine became too small for him, then the revolution became too small for him and then Cuba grew too small for him. You can define Ernesto by the things he couldn't stand - he couldn't stand lies or unfairness or getting things he didn't deserve."

As for the US authorities' decision to deny the Cuban-based Granado admission to the country, the 81-year-old struck a diplomatic note. "It's always easy to blame the (American) imperialists, but maybe we didn't ask for the visa in time," he said. "But I would have loved to have been there."

Sharing the stage with Granado was Che Guevaro's son, Camillo Guevara. And, no, the inevitable question about the ups and downs of having an iconic revolutionary for a father wasn't long in coming. "I stand upright on my own feet," Camillo stated. "But while I am his biological son, my father had many ideological sons who are more important than the biological ones."