USA: BRAZILIAN FILM DIRECTOR WALTER SALLES PREMIERES HIS LATEST FILM "CENTRAL STATION"

Record ID: 387873

  • Title: USA: BRAZILIAN FILM DIRECTOR WALTER SALLES PREMIERES HIS LATEST FILM "CENTRAL STATION"
  • Date: 9th November 1998
  • Summary: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (NOVEMBER 6, 1998) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) WALTER SALLES, DIRECTOR SAYING (SOUNDBITE ENGLISH ) "FOR ONE WHOLE YEAR WE TRIED TO FIND THE ACTOR WHO WOULD PLAY THE LEAD OF A TEN YEAR-OLD KID, WE COULDN'T FIND HIM. I TESTED 1,500 KIDS DURING THAT YEAR AND WE WERE GETTING MORE AND MORE DESPERATE BECAUSE EITHER WE WOULD FIND BOYS THAT HAD A STR
  • Embargoed: 24th November 1998 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
  • Country: USA
  • Reuters ID: LVAECFUDFQ2FUXRXLGCGLNLKH030
  • Story Text: Walter Salles - one of a new generation of Brazilian film directors committed to exploring social issues - appeared in New York on Friday, to attend the premiere of his latest film, Central Station, which focuses on the story of a cynical middle-aged letter-writer and an orphaned boy.
    Salles' "Central Station" is the story of a poor boy, Josue, played by the young Vinicius de Oliverira, who after his mother is killed, is reluctantly befriended by a lonely and cynical woman (Fernanda Montenegra).
    As the unlikely pair travel across unfamiliar geographical terrain in search of the boy's father, they defy their initial aversion to each other, journeying closer together and deeper inside themselves.
    Set against an epic backdrop of vast, majestic landscapes, the trip becomes a quest for their own identities: one boy's search for his father; and one woman's search for her heart.
    The search for the boy actor, was not an easy one says Salles.After auditioning over 1,500 young actors, he still hadn't found the right one.
    "One day I was going to take a plane in an airport and the shoeshine boy in the airport came up to me and said "My name is Vinicius and I'm the shoeshine boy at the airport and it is raining...I was very intrigued by the way he was looking at me and by the profound look that he had.He didn't even blink when he was saying that and purely by intuition, I said you don't need to pay me back, you just need to do a film test,"
    he said.
    Salles admits he waited almost a decade to work with Fernanda Montenegro, one of Brazil's greatest theatre actresses.She plays Dora, the hard-faced retired teacher, a childless survivor amongst millions of others, who pens letters for a constant traffic of people, charging a dollar a time.
    "Central Station" was penned by Joao Emanual Carneiro and Marcos Bernstein.It made its bow at the Sundance festival this year and won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in February.
    Salles says he sees the "Central Station", which cost only $2.9 million to make, as a metaphor for compassion which he hopes is growing in Brazilian society.
    The film's success is nothing short of miraculous.Over the past decade, Brazilian films almost ceased to exist.
    Walter Salles who previously made a series of respected documentaries, beat overwhelming odds to make his film debut, initially funded by the Sundance Institute.
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