Interview Notes COG

Meirelles worked with non professional actors who were from the slums and allowed them to improvise under his intentions in order to make the film feel more real. The co director of the film Katia Lund was just finishing a documentary on drug crimes in the slums of Rio when she started working on City of God. Rocket is a symbol of hope - he is based on two real people, one who became a writer from the City of God and the other a photographer. For the drug dealers in the movie, Meirelles says their was never any hope. Meirelles states his film is very different to a movie such as pulp fiction, he does not want violence glamorized in the movie. Meirelles states that the middle class Brazilians are so separated from the slums of Brazil that they allow everything to happen there as if it is happening on a different world. Meirelles financed City of God himself and doesn't want to work in Hollywood as he prefers to work independently. Meirelles wanted to show City of God from a lower class perspective. Before reading Paulo Lins' book he had only been shown half the story which was being released to the middle class, he was shocked to learn the truth.