It’s based on an inspiring true story of a family’s resistance against Brazil’s military dictatorship.
Walter, woudl you mind doing the honors and giving a brief synopsis?
WALTER SALLES: We are with a family.
Image via TIFF 2024
We are in 1970 in Brazil.
A very unique family their house is open to the street, they have friends everywhere.
The film becomes a film about the reinvention of the mother of that family.
Image via Photagonist at TIFF 2024
It was really a labor of love that we did for seven years.
I think it was 12 years.
Why the long wait and why particularly the return to that with this story at this particular time?
Image via Photagonist at TIFF 2024
SALLES: First, I love to drift documentaries in between fiction films.
I did a few documentaries in between, and then the pandemic came.
We had four years of silence.
Image via Photagonist at TIFF 2024
This would be the first part of the answer.
It was an extraordinary immersion for all of us.
SALLES:I had the luck and the privilege to meet that family.
Image via TIFF 2024
I was in that house and what I remember from it was the extraordinary vitality of it.
I think that the camera is very organic to that kind of life that bubbles in there.
I really wanted to relay the sense of how we deal with absence and how we can re-invent ourselves.
Image via PHotagonist at TIFF 2024
That changed, completely, the film grammar that we used.
We wanted to bring the improvisational quality of Super 8 family films in it.
That was an incredible injection of life in the narrative.
Image via Photagonist at TIFF 2024
We had actors that really reinvented that story every single day.
That’s a very rare little miracle.
We went from one little miracle to the next.
Image via Photagonist at TIFF 2024
I have so much I want to follow up on right now.
Was there a particular moment in prep or on set when you felt that in yourself?
FERNANDA TORRES: Perfect.
Because this is a story based on a book.
It’s the story of Marcelo, who is a young boy in the movie.
One day, he writes his own story.
We all knew about who inspired him and what happened, but not in detail.
That stayed in silence.
It’s a revolutionary, this woman!
And in a very private way.
When I saw the movie for the first time, I said,“We all look so honest.
“This is really rare.
And I think we got there because Walter created this real house.
Sometimes, I tell him it’s a documentary; it’s not even a movie.
It was one year with her under my skin, and very powerful.
I’m so glad you’re able to recognize that quality in your own film.
TORRES: I felt it as a spectator.
Only now do I understand, as we are talking about it.
It’s the projection of your own memory.
It’s a special movie.
SELTON MELLO: It’s beautiful, this part of the process.
Then you start to realize new levels of what you did.
I’m a big fan of Walter, and it’s so touching.
I’m a filmmaker, too, and I learned a lot as a director during this process.
Becauseto be simple is the highest form of expression,and this is what Walter did with this film.
MELLO: Yes, I learned a lot.
I don’t know how to use these new tools that I got from Walter.
At the end of the day, it’s humanity.
What is so beautiful is what he takes off.
It was heartbreaking to watch.
I’m an actor in the film and a big fan of the film.
You brought up the fact that there was opportunity to improv and find magic in the moment on set.
TORRES: So many moments.
I remember we shot the happy part of the family, and it was really happy.
And one day, the windows were closed.
I’m really missing the son in this house.”
This young girl, it was her first movie and nine years old, and I know the feeling.
It happened a lot in the movie.
It’s full of this in the movie.
The whole ensemble here is exceptional.
It really was about allowing life to surface and capture those moments of truth somehow.
It was not about reenactment, butit was about being able to live in the logic of those characters.
This is what I would love to do is really to somehow relay the sensation.
It was really a film about that.
This was also based on the book, but it was blended with a personal experience.
The fact that I had been in the house that was brought back to life.
Somehow, you don’t direct in the same manner.
Somehow, you’re not informed by the same, just purely conceptual ideas.
There’s something that comes in a really subjective manner and somehow finds its way on the screen.
It’s hard even to describe this by words, because it transcends it.
It reaches that in a non-verbal manner.
A lot of what we did has to do with that.
I wanted to see to it to touch on your long-standing collaboration together.
In general, in this business, I love forcing longtime collaborators to give each other flowers.
TORRES: We did the movie of our youth.Foreign Land[Terra Estrangeira] was like a young movie.
He was doing stunts with me, driving cars with me.
We were young we went to Africa just to do one shot in the Cape Verde Islands.
We were really young, you see.
SALLES: So young that the filmdidn’tmake it to the TIFF at that point.
Because he called Daniela Thomas, who is also in this movie as a fixer.
She’s like an associated producer.
Daniela worked with me in theater, and she co-directedForeign Landwith Walter.
Walter took Daniela from the theater, and she wrote the script with the actors.
We started to be a family in that movie.
[Laughs] We did another movie later, but it was not as important asForeign Land.
And then I thought I would never meet him again.
When he invited me, I was like, “Are you sure, Walter?
“Then this is our film of our maturity.
Me as an actress, him as a director.
There is nothing pushy in this movie, not in acting, not in directing.
We, again, were pals, were very close, and mature.
It’s very moving, very moving to be back and it’s still beautiful.
With Fernanda, we had this incredible initial experience, a film shot in free form.
We reinvented that film every single day, and Fernanda, I call her co-author of the film.
TORRES: That one I accept.
SALLES: You accept.
So, we completely altered it.
[Laughs] We completely reinvented that end.
We tried to work to find the essence of every single scene.
Fernanda truly captured that.
Selton, as well.
In every scene, there’s no trick.There’s just the essence of the scene.
So yes, you are co-author of the film because you went beyond what I thought we would be.
It was my first trip out of Brazil.
Then I went there and I bought my ticket by myself.
Then I watchedForeign Landin New York alone.
I was like, “Wow, what a beautiful film.
What a great meditation on my country.
What a great cinematic experience.Someday, I wanna work with these guys.”
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