Walter Salles
Walter Salles
Walter Moreira Salles, Jr.is a Brazilian filmmaker and film producer of international prominence...
NationalityBrazilian
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth12 April 1956
CountryBrazil
books faithful inspired original screenplay spirit
First of all, we wanted to be faithful to the two books that inspired Jose Rivera's screenplay and to the spirit of the original journey.
accept book books-and-reading capturing decades four gave generation hunger imposed modern status today truths voice
On the Road' is a seminal book that gave voice to a whole generation -- capturing its hunger for experience, unwillingness to accept imposed truths and dissatisfaction with the status quo. It is as modern today as it was four decades ago.
foreign land pages shooting written
So I had this idea for the film but I was shooting Foreign Land and I had written 10 pages on it about what the story should be.
act aspect aware problems solve structural
The other aspect is that you become much more aware of the structural problems that pertain to that continent. You feel the need to act to try and solve them.
country whose
I come from a country and also a continent whose identity is in the making. We're a very young culture, and I think that things are not yet crystallised.
improvise project
But I also think that the more you reason collectively about what the project should be at the beginning of the process, the more you can improvise later.
films incentives latin vice
Also, there are now new laws in Brazil which create incentives for Argentine and Latin American films to be premiered and distributed in Brazil and vice versa.
worked
No, I worked a lot for European television, doing documentaries in Brazil.
specific
I'm much more interested in living specific experiences in films.
nine
I went to Cuba maybe eight or nine times.
maybe
I did documentaries for maybe 10 years before I turned to fiction films.
knew latin sacred
We all knew the book well because it's the cult book in Latin America. For me, this was a sacred territory. I would not have ventured into it by myself.
admired open
That's why I have always admired documentaries, because they open windows that can make you understand much better where you come from, much better than fiction, I think.
closer increase responsibility wonderful
So I feel a responsibility to help first-time film-makers in Brazil, but also to increase the dialogue between film cultures which are really wonderful and so much closer to us than what we do see on our screens.