"Reading City of God  was like a revelation.  A revelation of another side of my own country.  I believed I knew all about the social apartheid which existed in Brazil, until I read the book.  I realized that we, from the middle class, are unable to see what is going on right in front of our noses.  We have no idea of the abyss which separates these two countries: Brazil and brazil (sic).  State, laws, citizenship, police, education, perspective, and the future are all abstract concepts, mere smoke, when seen from the other side of this abyss." Fernando Meirelles

Fernando Meirelles was born in São Paulo in 1955.  While studying architecture at the Unviversity of São Paulo he began to produce experimental videos with a group of friends which led to the creation of an independent film production company called "Olhar Electrônico". Together with his colleagues he won the main awards in the Brazilian film festivals and his company gained recognition as being a reference for independent film production at the time. From experimental videos they began to produce TV programs which helped to bring a breath of fresh air to Brazilian television in the 80s.  Ernesto Varela, the Reporter, TV MIX,  and Ra Tim Bum series for youngsters are a few of his productions during this period.

At the end of the 80s he evolved from filming in video to celluloid film and directed commercials, while in the early years of the 90s, together with Paulo Moreli and Andrea Barata Ribeiro, opened the 02 Filmes production company. Over the last 10 years, without abandoning his TV productions and beginning his cinema career, he has become one of the better known commercial film directors in Brazil.  During the last 5 years he has directed two short films and two feature films together with his associates. In 2000 he moved to Rio de Janeiro to select and prepare the cast for the feature film City of God.

where did the idea come from to film the book?
A friend of mine gave me the novel City of God by Paulo Lins along with the idea to turn the almost 700 pages into a film.  I didn't give it any thought at all.  I knew that the book was about the beginnings of drug dealing in Rio de Janeiro, a violent story, without hope, which took place entirely inside a favela. I never used cocaine, wasn't interested in the subject, I didn't know much about how favelas  or drug dealing were organised, and I was never going to leave my family in São Paulo and film a feature film in Rio de Janeiro. I decided to read the book because of the great critics that I had seen.  By the time I got to page 100, I had to agree with my friend that the story was very interesting.  From page 200 forward, I began to underline one or two lines.  When I finished the entire 700 pages, I had the whole list of film locations and character roles noted down on the inside cover and was already completely involved in production work.  In reality, I never decided to adapt the book, it was the book itself that almost ran me down, asking to be adapted to film. I decided to make a movie which was true to the book: filmed from the inside of the favela out. A movie with no scenarios and no acting techniques, without even any professional actors, but with kids who live this reality, and who can transmit to others a little of what it feels like living on the other side of the tracks.  I was luckily able to find others crazy enough to dive into the project with the same passion as I.  We made the film out of sheer spite, gassed-up by enthusiasm. But City of God is not only about a Brazilian issue, but one that involves the whole world.  About societies which develop on the outskirts of our civilized world.  Of the opulence of the first world, a world that is no longer able to see the third or fourth world, on the other side, or deep down in the abyss.

why film City of God
Reading City of God was something like a revelation.  The revelation of another side of my own country.  I had already, of course, read books and articles of favelas and drug dealing and believed I knew something about the social apartheid which exists in Brazil, but the book somehow managed to go way beyond this, transforming the vision of this particular universe inside out.  The author, Paulo Lins, was raised in the City of God favela, and, practically, wrote the book watching the characters passing by his window. The monotonous repetition of different lives which appear and disappear before your eyes and the acceptance of this reality by those living it, was what most amazed me and brought me into the project.  A 16 year old kid knows that he is at the height of his life; he knows that if he is lucky he'll last another three or four years.  He knows he's going to die early and he walks towards this death as if searching for the final fatality.  The wasting of lives is the theme of the film.

how was the adaptation done?
It's not easy to put a book with 700 pages and 352 characters into two hours of film.  We, from the start, decided against picking out one plot and developing it.  What impressed me in the book was the quantity of characters and situations which appeared. I believed less in a dramatic sequence with a beginning, middle and end, and more in the sum of various stories, which, juxtaposed, would bring us to our desired result, which was to recreate the feeling found in the book. It was also important for the film to start in the 60s and extend into the 80s.  This would make it somewhat like a saga, showing how the drug business developed in Rio.  This interested me. There is no central character in the book, but Bráulio and I agreed from the beginning that this character in the film should be Buscapé, which is something like Paulo Lins' alter ego,  Buscapé is the observer/narrator who doesn't participate in the action, but is subject to it. The biggest difficulty in the adaptation was not to create situations, but cut them out.  Even after the first version was ready, we still had to cut out a lot before reaching the final version.  We eliminated plots and characters or brought together two or three characters into one. When we had arrived at the fourth draft, I thought we had a screenplay almost ready for filming and we began production. During the year of pre-production, we wound up writing 8 more treatments.  Katia Lund started to work with us and provided invaluable contributions, as she knew a lot about this reality.  Our cinematographer, César Charlone, also collaborated and finally the cast never ceased to alter the texts and create new situations at each rehearsal.  Paulo Lins was a sort of consultant when we had doubts concerning the authenticity of any particular part, expression or even wardrobe.  Bráulio had to continuously tie everything together. We filmed the 12^th draft along with a lot of modifications while we were shooting.  I had gone over the screenplay so many times and rehearsed the film so often that when I lost my copy of the script after two weeks, I didn't even worry about getting a new copy.  The film was all in my head.

what's it like filming in a community?
The movie, Cidade de Deus - CDD shows the beginning of the take-over of the favelas by the drug lords at the start of the 70s.  The process was similar in almost all the favelas  in Rio de Janeiro..  Presently, each community has an "owner" and society organises and learns to live according to his norms. The first time I went with the rest of the crew to see City of God , we left our car on a busy street and walked in, accompanied by one of the boys who worked with the drug dealers, to avoid any trouble.  Before walking 30 meters, before my first minute on CDD soil, a kid came up from behind with an enormous silver pistol, pointing threateningly at us.  He came ready for action.  The guy who was accompanying us jumped in front and avoided any further trouble.  In 5 seconds the kid with the gun disappeared.  With a speeding heart, I realised that Paulo Lins' story was not just make believe.  I understood the film right then and there. For those coming from the outside, like me, favelas seem to be a country within a country.  The presence of the State cannot be seen, the laws are different, police are looked on as the threat and not as someone who defends, they only provoke conflicts and threaten order each time they appear.  The "owners" are also the judges in the favelas, deciding on things ranging from personality or family issues to questions about public administration.  We witnessed a casual telephone call by the major of City of God to the drug headquarters asking for permission and a date in which he could send a truck to replace the light bulbs in a certain neighbourhood.  It was the drug organization which decided, and not the town hall, if we would be permitted to film in the area or not.  To film inside a favela you need location producers who know how to reach the "owner" and one who knows the behaviour codes so as not to make any errors.  We were told that the screenplay for City of God  made it's way to the Bangu I maximum security prison, and approved to be filmed with the recommendation that we not copy American films and showed reality as it was.

why wasn't CDD filmed in City of God?
Our initial idea was to film the movie in City of God itself.  We had luckily made a short film there six months before and realised that would be very complicated to stay there very long.  During the week we made the short we had daily problems.  On the first day, they decided not let us shoot the film, because, as far as we could understand, the "owner" thought our script was too violent.  He had someone tell us that films shouldn't be made about drug dealers, because they weren't good examples for the kids (sic).  We went around improvising locations and getting around problems every day.  Between gunshots, police officers not doing what they said they would and the heavily armed drug dealers all around us, we finished the last day of filming with the certainty that City of God  could not be filmed in City of God.

where was the film shot?
The first phase was filmed in the tenement housing project called Nova Sepetiba which luckily, although just then being occupied, had not been officially inaugurated and it was therefore prohibited to build walls and pavements.  Besides, the colour, it looked a lot like City of God in the 60s.  Another positive point was that although drug dealers were already coming in, they hadn't as yet taken over the place.  The inhabitants told us that this would only begin when it was legal to build brick walls and fences, turning the place into a favela and safe for them to hide in.  The State Government gave us authorisation to film. For the second part of the film, we opted for another housing project constructed the same time as City of God, only on the other side of town.  The big advantage here was the "owner" was already 40 years old, and therefore more stable to do business with than the 19 year old kids who controlled the other areas.  He asked us to see the screenplay and negotiated some conditions: hire help from the local community and create as many jobs as possible, be accompanied always by someone from his group, identify our cars and when they would arrive and leave, and a price for film sites and extras.  In reality we never got to meet him as he was in jail in Bangu I, where he negotiated everything with the help of go-betweens.  Once everything had been settled on verbally, there were no more problems.  We were welcomed on arrival, and everyone tried to make our work easier: they took all the modern cars off the street, lent us garages, let us into their homes so we could shoot from their windows.  There weren't many complaints about the noise we made and there were always a lot of people interested in playing passers-by.  We never signed anything.  There was no need to.

what is the aesthetic foundation of the film?
Paulo Lins' book is divided into 3 parts and each part revolves around a certain character: Cabeleira (Shaggy), Bené(Benny) and Mané Galinha (Manu Ladykiller), respectively.  But in reality, the book is a succession of in numerous chronicles of characters and their relation with crime.  This repetition, at times monotonous, is what impregnates us with the atmosphere of the film and the logistics of the place.  In the film, we decided to maintain the same 3 parts, but each of the phases marks a period in time and not a character.  I decided to treat each of these parts as if it were a different film.  I passed out a text for all those involved in the production to make it clear what we were looking for in each of these phases. The first part is the story of the "Tender Trio", in the 60s, to the tune of traditional samba.  It has to do with a more romantic breed of criminals.  It has a hot tone, a certain innocence, and is filmed using the more classical options in the choice of lenses (from 32 to 65), in the framing, composition and scenes.  The second part takes place in the beginning of the 70s, and tells the story of Zé Pequeno (Li'l Ze), business starts to grow and everything is going well: lots of colour, a freer camera, more liberty in editing.  It is a more "marijuana" type feeling, pop/samba/funk is in the air. The last phase of the film is war: Mané Galinha's (Manu Ladykiller) story.  Monochromatic, cold, nervous.  Even the editing loses control, anything goes; displaced axis, jump cuts, whips, camera out of focus, everything is so quick.  And the bad vibes coming from cocaine. The general guidelines which follow have been exemplified to exhaustion and are a part of the whole crew's repertoire: "130mm can't be used in this phase yet.  Use the 40 and come up close"; "This shirt is too first phase"; "Let's use that sofa there, it's more second phase"; "You can take away the reflector, because this is the third phase".  This was our daily jargon and everyone knew what the other was talking about, from the make-up assistant to the art painter; from the colourist to the editor.

How was the cast thought out?
If the text and the cast are well thought out in any type of project, I feel that the work is almost all done.  Découpage, photography, art direction, music, editing, everything revolves around this starting point. Most of the films that have impressed me throughout my life have done so because of the acting.  I have always been fascinated by directors who work with non-professional or unknown actors. Of course I like to see Robert De Niro playing Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver.  But there is no question that De Niro will always be a sort of filter to getting to know Travis: a small movement of his head, a way of pressing the lips together and looking to the side, I know they belong to Robert, I've seen them before, they are not Travis'.  So the pleasure I have in seeing the film is to see how amazing Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle is. But in City of God I wanted the spectator to come to know Zé Pequeno and not just see an extraordinary interpretation of Zé Pequeno.  I wanted the spectator to relate directly with the character without any filters.  Using unknown actors was one of our starting points for casting.  And even after acquiring the book's film rights, I knew that if I made the film my biggest problem would be putting together the cast.  I would need to find a hundred young boys ranging between 12 to 19 years old, with the majority of them being mulatto or Negroes, sensitive, charismatic, intelligent, generous and available.  I knew that I'd have to begin one year in advance and only after this was carried out with good results, begin the pre-production.


MORE