Quotes

I've always been very independent, I've always produced my own things; I don't know how to share. A big studio invests a lot of money, and they want control. I'm not prepared for that yet.

Harvey Weinstein liked "City of God" from the beginning. He didn't want to change anything. When the film's release was done, he called me to say, "This film deserves more than it got, and we're going to spend money and do a campaign, and we're gonna get nominations." From the business side, it was a bad experience, but I would do it again. I don't think I signed a good contract. I didn't really believe in the film. It was a low-budget Brazilian film in Portuguese -- what can a film like this do? Harvey liked the film more than I did. They paid exactly what was on the contract.

I'm going to do some big film at some point but not now. My ideal career would be to do what Pedro Almodovar does (in Spain). I'd like to make Brazilian films for international audiences that are not big-budget. This would be the best.

This is the part that I like most, in the process, is to edit and try to find the story. Sometimes you think you have a film, and then you change something and it becomes different. It's a wonderful job. Because it surprises you.

I never stop working on a film. I can't help myself.

If you do a film with a high budget, people want to control it. Marketing people tell you what to do, and where to cut, so they can get their money back. I am more interested in doing smaller films that I can control.

When you do a film, everything is related to point-of-view, to vision. When you have two characters in a dialog, emotion is expressed by the way people look at each other, through the eyes. Especially in the cut, the edit. You usually cut when someone looks over. Film is all about point-of-view...

It's much easier to shoot in English, [as it provides, at least, for] a decent budget so I can do what I have in mind.

I really recommend you, Sunday morning if you have nothing to do, wake up in the morning, put [on] a blindfold and stay 'til 4, 5 in the afternoon. It's really fantastic!" He explains: "Sound and smell is much enhanced, but also your thoughts, because you can't read, you can't be distracted, so you're with yourself.

An architect is somebody who really doesn't know how to build a building. [They need engineers, just as directors rely on writers and actors. What both architects and directors do bring is] a vision.

[Blindness (2008)] is not about blind people, it's about human nature, about people who have just gone blind with no time for any adaptation. The only character who's really blind (Maury Chaykin) is completely adapted and so efficient that he's able to control all the others. I never even thought that the film could hurt blind people, because that's not what it is about. I know some artists, scientists or businessmen that are blind and brilliant in their jobs. We all know that.