What does everyone think of the director of "City Of God"?
BTW, he previously made a film called "Domésticas".
This thread looks lonely and abandoned.
I'll fix that.
I think he's overrated. :-D
And the winner isn't... (http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,6737,1141753,00.html)
Kátia Lund co-directed the explosive City of God. Why was her name left off the Oscar nomination?
by Alex Bellos
Quote from: The Silver BulletAnd the winner isn't... (http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,6737,1141753,00.html)
Kátia Lund co-directed the explosive City of God. Why was her name left off the Oscar nomination?
by Alex Bellos
yeah check out the city of god thread.
Well, there you go.
That's what I get for not reading every thread of every forum.
Quote from: The Silver BulletWell, there you go.
That's what I get for not reading every thread of every forum.
nah, just the relevant ones would do in this case. the most obvious being the popular current thread entitled CITY OF GOD.
i actually don't see anything that can be said in this thread that hasn't already been posted in the other one. in fact all discussion regarding meirelles has been in the other one so i would guess spike hasn't seen it either. otherwise why start this?
Danny Huston Joins The Constant Gardener
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Danny Huston (21 Grams) is in talks to star opposite Rachel Weisz and Ralph Fiennes in The Constant Gardener for City of God director Fernando Meirelles.
The Focus Features picture is a big-screen adaptation of a John Le Carre novel about an English diplomat (Fiennes) in Kenya whose wife (Weisz) is murdered after she uncovers a scandal at a pharmaceutical company. Huston would take on the role of a fellow diplomat who falls for Weisz's character.
I just hope he doesn't go 100% Hollywood for this one... that would bea shame. Unless he does so just to make money for a new film as great as Cidade de Deus.
Quote from: ElPandaRoyalUnless he does so just to make money for a new film as great as Cidade de Deus.
Never heard of it.
Quote from: ElPandaRoyalUnless he does so just to make money for a new film as great as Cidade de Deus.
oh u mean work with Katia Lund again?
Early word on Meirelles & Mantovani's Intolerância 2
Source: Latin AICN
According to Cinema em Cena (www.cinema.art.br), while Fernando Meirelles (Oscar nominated) is busy filming The Constant Gardener, his script partner Bráulio Mantovani (Oscar nominated) is focused in scripting Intolerância 2 (not the definitive title – this provisory title is said to be simply an amusing joke between Meirelles and Mantovani), but who knows.
Interviewed by journal Folha de São Paulo, Mantovani said that already send the 172 pages of the script to Meirelles. According to him, it's only the first treatment and will probably be reduced in a second version to stop the film being too long.
Despite the project being considerate as some sort of sequel for Intolerância or Intolerance (classic of 1916, directed by D.W. Griffith – it was about the history of mankind through times), the similarities between the two films end in the title.
The story of Intolerância 2 is unique, involving six different countries, with six characters, everyone talking is own language. It will show the routine of those persons, and illustrating the contradictions of economic globalization, with centre of attention in its good and bad aspects.
The main characters are: a poor young Brazilian elevated to medium-high life condition; a terrorist that adopts the principles of Islamic fundamentalism; a Chinese girl that sustains himself with a low job while she dreams in having a higher life condition; a couple of Kenyan runners; a north-American woman that has a job of releasing tendencies; and a Occidentalized young Arab girl.
According to Mantovani, the lives of all of them become linked by the help of a big corporation, yet without a name, referred in the script only by "The Mark". This corporation supports the athletic field where the Kenyans run; promotes a video competition that calls the Brazilian attention; buys the products fabricated by the enterprise where the Chinese works; and there it goes. In the end, all the characters will reunite in the Arabs Emirates.
All points that Meirelles will stay involved with The Constant Gardener for the rest of the year, so Intolerância 2 will only begin its filming in 2005. Until then, the duo hopes to get new resources to finance the production.
Quote from: themodernage02Despite the project being considerate as some sort of sequel for Intolerância or Intolerance (classic of 1916, directed by D.W. Griffith – it was about the history of mankind through times), the similarities between the two films end in the title.
Oh, that's unfortunate.
For those of you that don't know, there's a couple of Intolerance Xixax banners. :wink:
Comforts of homeland
Fresh from directing the mainstream "Constant Gardener," Fernando Meirelles is back in Brazil to do projects with his independent stamp. By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
"HAS the academy gone mad?"
That was Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles' reaction nearly two years ago upon learning of his nomination for best director for "City of God," a kinetic, exhilarating look at violent life and death in one of this city's squalid, drug-ridden shantytowns. Shot entirely in Portuguese, on a budget that would have trouble paying for catering on a Hollywood set, the movie was a surprise critical and financial hit worldwide.
If a similar call comes through in a few months with news of an Oscar nod for his direction of the acclaimed John le Carré thriller "The Constant Gardener," Meirelles will be elated, this time — but not shocked.
"I'll be surprised and extremely happy, but it would make more sense, because at least it's a film in English, and there are a couple stars in it," he said. " 'The Constant Gardener' is more part of the game than 'City of God' was. It's a $25-million film versus a $2-million film."
Meirelles' career has undergone a dramatic shift since that bolt-from-the-blue Academy Award nomination, vaulting a man best known in his native country for making commercials onto Tinseltown's list of coveted directors.
Doors he never knew existed have now swung open. American producers recognize his name, even if they mispronounce it on occasion (it's may-REL-less). Scripts are pouring in.
But Meirelles, who turned 50 last month, is interrupting his rocket rise in Hollywood's sights to go back to his roots in Brazil, where he has two smaller-scale projects in the works. Both are meditations, he says, on the nature of happiness and the meaning of life.
The only thing he'll say about one of them is that it will be a low-budget film in Portuguese. The other, "Intolerance," will be a takeoff on, or a sequel of sorts to, D.W. Griffith's silent-film classic of the same name. Like its predecessor, Meirelles' movie will weave together stories from locales around the world — Kenya, China and the United Arab Emirates, to name a few.
"There are a lot of sequences in English, because in the Arab Emirates, Philippines and Kenya, they speak English as well. But it's a Brazilian project, from Brazil," Meirelles said, adding: "Of course, when I have the script ready, I'll try to get some American financing as well. But my goal is to be very independent in this project."
Independence and a search for his own distinctive style have been characteristic of Meirelles' career as a filmmaker ever since he began experimenting with a Super 8 camera he received as a gift at age 12. By high school, Meirelles, the son of a prominent doctor, was doing research on foreign movies for his campus film club. In college, he submitted a video documentary as his thesis, even though he studied architecture, a field that still affects the way he approaches his craft.
"I see things like constructions — graphically," Meirelles said in Rio, where he was in town for the Brazilian premiere of "The Constant Gardener." "When I read a script, I see the structure of the script, sometimes more than the emotions of the characters or the lines of dialogue. The structure is really what [grabs me], and I think this is a bit of my architecture experience."
Learning to shoot
MEIRELLES made his name directing television commercials — at least 700 of them at last count by his São Paulo-based O2 Films, one of the biggest production companies in Latin America.
"That's how I learned how to shoot. I see my commercial career as really my school, especially when you do commercials the way I did," he said. "I was doing four or five a month. I was shooting in different situations — in studios, underwater, on helicopters … with different POVs [points of view], hundreds of different actors. I'm really confident of my skills to tell stories and where to put the camera."
That assurance was evident in "City of God," which critics praised for its adrenaline-fueled camera work, inventive perspectives and edgy editing. Meirelles and his longtime cinematographer, César Charlone, employed some of the same techniques in "The Constant Gardener," including encouraging the actors to improvise, just as they did with the untrained youths, plucked from the shantytown, who starred in "City of God."
"They were debating all the time different ways of shooting," said actor Ralph Fiennes, who plays the lead character, the grief-stricken diplomat Justin Quayle, in "The Constant Gardener." "Because they have a kind of jiving, adventurous quality about how we can shoot, I'd pick up on it and would be saying, 'Can we do one more? I can do it like this.' So there was a sense that nothing need be too fixed."
Yet "The Constant Gardener" was a different experience for Meirelles than "City of God," and not just because, as he told one interviewer, "the wine is better [and] you travel first class."
Where his breakout feature "was mine 100%," he said, "Gardener" belonged as much to author Le Carré, producer Simon Channing Williams and the studio, Focus Features, as it did to him. While he says he still enjoyed a free hand as director, it presented a change from his favored role as the guy who calls all the shots. As he told the Brazilian newsmagazine Epoca this year: "I'm still in the stage of being obsessed with control."
Hence his return to Brazil, to work once again on homegrown projects that are his own from start to finish. Meirelles has spurned offers to move to Hollywood, which feels too far from the home outside São Paulo that he shares with his wife, Cecilia, a dancer and actress, and their two children. The house is the only structure he has ever designed and built himself.
"I like staying here. I don't depend on the studios. I don't depend on the way the system moves," said Meirelles, who for all his rising fame is down-to-earth, affable and gracious in person. "Staying in Brazil will keep me more independent."
But this is also a land whose people go with the tropical flow, where soccer players change it up beautifully on the field and samba dancers move to a multitude of rhythms. With a successful studio-backed venture in his pocket, Meirelles is interested in mixing it up. There has been talk of his taking on a blockbuster treatment of the fiery end of ancient Pompeii.
Doors have opened
THE director himself confesses to harboring some DeMille-sized aspirations. "I'd love to do at least once in my life a very big film, a film where marketing people will tell me what to do and all that. If you're prepared for that, it won't hurt as much," he said. "I'd like to do something like that as an experience.
"What I like is that because of this recognition, there are people interested in partnerships, in working with me. Three or four years ago I couldn't call a studio or an American producer and say, 'I have this project. Do you want to co-produce with me?' And now I can. I know somebody will read my idea. It's opened doors, which is a good thing, and I'm going to use these doors. I'm very interested in offering my projects to the same people who are offering me scripts."
Those projects are informed by Meirelles' Brazilian-ness, which he defines partly as a way of seeing the world from below, rather than from on top, as he feels Americans tend to do.
"In Brazil we have a very different perspective on life. When I go to the U.S., the idea of being a winner, of being a success, is very powerful. Of course, everyone in Brazil wants to be a winner, but it's not the same as in the U.S., where it's important to be first," he said. "There's the phrase in the U.S., 'You're a loser,' which in English means a lot. But here in Brazil, in Portuguese, it doesn't mean as much, like maybe you lost a footrace or something…. You see the First World, the official world, with a certain distance."
He tried to convey that in "The Constant Gardener," with its tale of official corruption and arrogance on the part of the British government and European drug companies.
Ultimately, Meirelles would like the stories he tells to be ones from and about his homeland. After the runaway success of "City of God," he stuck with the gritty subject matter and some of the actors, producing and directing episodes for the TV spinoff "City of Men," which charts the lives of the young men from the shantytown as they grow up, date and pursue their careers.
As for his own career, "My goal, my ideal world, is to do Brazilian films, even shot in Portuguese, but for an international market, like [Pedro] Almodóvar does with his films," Meirelles said. "It's amazing that after 20 or 25 years, he keeps doing Spanish films in Spanish, shot in Spain, and the whole world … sees them.
"He has the kind of career that I'd like."
Quote from: MacGuffinBut Meirelles, who turned 50 last month
i did not know that.this changes everything.
i like this guy.
a lot.
Just saw on TV that his next film will be an adaptation of josé saramago's novel "ensaio sobre a cegueira" ("blindness", in english).
I don't really know what I feel about this, I like the book, though not a great fan... but I bet he will do wonders with the film.
a little more info...
Fernando Meirelles to Direct Blindness
Source: Variety September 13, 2006
Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener, City of God) is returning to Brazil to direct Blindness, an English-language film based on the 1995 novel by Portuguese Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago.
The book is a philosophical thriller about an epidemic of blindness that sweeps through an unnamed contemporary city and pushes society to the brink of breakdown.
The $25 million project is being set up as a Brazilian/Canadian co-production. It will shoot next summer in Sao Paolo, Meirelles' hometown, and Toronto.
The script is by Don McKellar, the Canadian writer-director-actor. McKellar also will play a supporting role in the movie.
wow i just read this and had a test on it today.
i liked it fine, and it certainly can be adapted into something greater, so i'm in.
I saw one of his earlier movies this summer, 'Domesticas.' I highly recommend it.
It was adapted to theatre before, i didn't see it, but people who did say the play sucked.
All day I was remembering moments of the novel, and I get more and more excited about this film!
Quote from: modage on September 13, 2006, 05:05:22 PM
The script is by Don McKellar, the Canadian writer-director-actor. McKellar also will play a supporting role in the movie.
That's good news.
Meirelles pic has eye on talent
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Daniel Craig is in talks and Julianne Moore is in negotiations to star in the Fernando Meirelles-helmed drama "Blindness" for Focus Features International.
Adapted by Don McKellar from Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago's acclaimed novel, the story chronicles an epidemic of blindness that sweeps through an unnamed contemporary city and pushes society to the brink of breakdown.
Potboiler Prods., Rhombus Media, Bee Vine Pictures and Meirelles' shingle 02 Filmes are producing. Focus is handling foreign sales for the film, which does not yet have a U.S. distribution deal.
Niv Fichman, Simon Channing-Williams and Gail Egan are producing.
Daniel Craig is in talks and Julianne Moore is in negotiations to star in the Fernando Meirelles helmed drama "Blindness" for Focus Features International says The Hollywood Reporter.
Adapted by Don McKellar from Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago's acclaimed novel, the story chronicles an epidemic of blindness that sweeps through an unnamed contemporary city and pushes society to the brink of breakdown.
Focus is handling foreign sales for the film, which does not yet have a U.S. distribution deal.
Excellent. Meirelles contines to develop into one of the best filmmakers going today and he gets two actors I really like. Moore has always been a favorite, but her choice of roles lately have been underwhelming and Craig is my boy. The best Bond and a legitimate actor.
did you forget how to quote?
No. My original post was a topic thread in the Grapevine forum. I didn't see that Mac already posted the same information here. Admins just moved it here.
i am satisfied.
Sounds like he wants to pull a Cuaron. It's even got Julianne Moore in it.
Meirelles takes a crack at 'Love'
Source: Hollywood Reporter
CANNES -- Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles will switch gears after wrapping the dark drama "Blindness," by directing a romantic comedy based on the novel "Love's Labors Lost" by Brazilian screenplay writer Jorge Furtado.
Moving between Brazil, London, Denmark and New York, "Love's Labors Lost" is a very loose adaptation of Shakespeare's comedy and follows the lives and romantic entanglements of a group of international students. Meirelles' shingle O2 Filmes will produce with Furtado adapting his novel for the screen.
Furtado's many credits including an episode for 02 Filmes-produced Brazilian TV series "City of Men."
Meirelles plans to begin shooting "Love's Labors Lost" by the end of 2009.
"After I do 'Blindness,' which is a very dark story, I'll really need to do a comedy," Meirelles said in an interview. "I like comedy a lot and I have done some for Brazilian television, but somehow my films like 'City of God' and 'The Constant Gardner' are all these very dark subjects. I should probably talk to my psychologist about that."
Meirelles is wearing several hats at this year's Cannes.
He is finalizing casting on "Blindness," meeting with actors to take on the lead role of a doctor who is the only man who can see in a village where everyone else is suddenly struck blind. Daniel Craig was in talks to take the role but is no longer attached.
Meirelles is also acting as a co-producer on the Un Certain Regard title "El Bano Del Papa," which Bavaria Film International is selling at Cannes. The film, the directorial debut of "City of God" cinematographer Enrique Fernandez, premieres on Monday.
"It's a wonderful, true story of the Pope's visit to a small town on the Uruguayan/Brazilian border," Meirelles said. "They are expecting 80,000 Brazilians to come and one man, to make money, invests all he has to try to build a toilet to rent out to the tourists. It's funny but also very touching."
If all that weren't enough, Meirelles is also prepping "Adrift," the first project to be made under the co-development/production deal O2 Filmes has with Focus Features and Universal. Heitor Dahlia, whose "Drained" premiered at Sundance this year, will direct the story of a young girl who discovers her father is having an affair.
Quote from: MacGuffin on May 20, 2007, 08:03:01 PM
Meirelles is wearing several hats at this year's Cannes.
the effects of global warming are becoming harder and harder to ignore.
'Blindness' in Ruffalo's sight
Actor to star with Moore in Meirelles film
Source: Variety
Director Fernando Meirelles has set his sights on Mark Ruffalo for "Blindness."
Ruffalo will star with Julianne Moore in an adaptation of the Jose Saramago novel about an outbreak of blindness that sweeps an unidentified town. Shooting begins this summer in Sao Paolo, Brazil. Focus Features is selling international rights.
Ruffalo will play a doctor who loses his sight along with everyone else in town, except the doc's wife. Don McKellar wrote the script, and Meirelles' 02 Filmes will produce. Meirelles most recently directed "The Constant Gardener" and "City of God."
Ruffalo, last seen in "Zodiac," recently completed the Terry George-directed "Reservation Road," the Spike Jonze-helmed "Where the Wild Things Are" and the Ryan Johnson-directed "Brothers Bloom."
Thank God. When Craig dropped out, I had visions of actors like Eric Bana or Christian Bale getting the role. Mark Ruffalo is a great second choice.
3 succumb to 'Blindness' at Focus Int'l
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Gael Garcia Bernal, Danny Glover and Alice Braga are set to join Fernando Meirelles' apocalyptic drama "Blindness" for Focus Features International.
Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo already have joined the project, which is based on Jose Saramago's acclaimed novel that is set in motion when an epidemic of blindness sweeps through a contemporary city and pushes society to the brink of breakdown. Bernal will play the King of Ward 3, and Glover will narrate the story. Braga will portray the girl with the dark glasses.
Potboiler Prods., Rhombus Media, Bee Vine Pictures and Meirelles' shingle 02 Filmes are producing.
Shooting is scheduled to begin in early July in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Toronto.
ok i'm excited.
Definitely excited. I still think Ruffalo looks too young to play the character he's playing but he's got the chops to make it work. This is destined to be a solid contender for the 2009 Xixax Awards (unless Malick makes another movie).
Meirelles, Gosling in Talks for Next Jack Ryan Pic
Source: ComingSoon
Moviehole this morning reported that Fernando Meirelles, director of such acclaimed films as City of Men, The Constant Gardener and City of God, is the frontrunner to helm By Any Means Necessary, which may star Ryan Goslin (Lars and the Real Girl) as Tom Clancy's hero Jack Ryan, previously played by Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin and Ben Affleck.
Brazilian website Cinema em Cena contacted Meirelles today and he confirmed that he is considering directing By Any Means Necessary. However, he said that he is not so sure about taking the job at the moment, because he is finishing Blindness and already has another project in development.
The story will not be based on a Clancy novel but will be an original script.