Wagner Moura

“Here in my hands is one of the most important Brazilian films ever directed, by the great Glauber Rocha. We call it Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol. This film blew people’s mind, because it’s sort of like a western in Brazil, full of political and social comments and beautiful in terms of the way they… the outfits that the characters were wearing, and the landscapes and Glauber’s talent, so, and the most beautiful poster in the history of films, in my opinion. Black God, White Devil. And this actor is an amazing actor, I actually saw him recently performing on stage, Othon Bastos, he’s also from my hometown, Salvador, also where Glauber is from, Bahia. So I would like to see this one here. I’m going to put it in my beautiful bag.”

“I love films about working-class people. Oh. Here is a film that is… that is not that known, and it’s called Il Posto. It’s another film about working-class people. It’s about this guy, this very naive guy, lost in the bureaucracy of work. I love films where you can have a sense of the political and the social situation, but you go… you get to this part through the humanity of a character, and this is a very beautiful character. I absolutely adore this film, Il Posto.”

“Memories of Underdevelopment, by Cuban director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea. I can’t tell you what I felt after I saw this film, because it’s a film about the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution, where people are leaving Cuba, and this intellectual, this guy who was part of the Cuban bourgeoisie, he decides to stay, and it’s so philosophical, but it’s also a film that reflects a… in a way, it reflects a moment in history that few films that I know did, because it doesn’t capture only the facts, but the feelings. And it’s beautifully shot. You have to see this film.”

“And the Dardenne brothers. And then we come to these guys, who are my favorite filmmakers in the world, because they manage to talk about young people in a way that I have never seen anyone do the way they do it. Rosetta is a beautiful film. It’s a beautiful film, it’s a very sad film. It’s shot with so– those handheld cameras, it’s shot in such a realistic way. And in that sense, it has a conversation with the way Brazilians shoot their films as well. The whole Cinema Novo movement back in the ’60s, the… their idea was like: a camera on your shoulder and an idea in your head. And I think that that’s exactly what the Dardenne brothers do with their films. And I think this is my favorite.”

“I also love The Boy and the Bike, The Kid with the Bike, this is heartbreaking as well. And I don’t know how he managed to find these kids to act the way they do. I just love the Dardenne brothers, and I… and I’m just happy I got two DVDs from you.”

“This box is, like, Scorsese’s World Cinema Project, and in here there is one film that is a classic in Brazil, it’s called Pixote, directed by Héctor Babenco. And I worked with him. I worked with him in a film called Carandiru, a very strong film about a prison in Brazil where horrible things happened. But Pixote is his masterpiece. It’s about kids that live on the streets of São Paulo. Like, the way City of God shocked the world in the 2000s, Pixote did the same thing in the ’80s. It’s a blast of reality in front of the camera. It’s very, very strong. Héctor Babenco. Great filmmaker.”

“And in the same collection… Scorsese knows. He knows shit. He chose a film that no one really knows outside… and even in Brazil, it’s a film directed by Mário Peixoto, called Limite. It’s 1931. And this film is– I’ve never seen anything like this film. It’s experimental and beautiful and touching and crazily well shot. Everybody that knows about movies and that loves films in Brazil and elsewhere cultivates this film as a classic. Amazing, amazing.”