Chasing Sunrise

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54Chasing Sunrise September 22–24, 2014A Walter Salles Film Festival The Director

The DirectorWalter Salles.............................................................08Film Awards...............................................................16A I terview...............................................................20

The FestivalVe e...........................................................................30Sc ed le.....................................................................34Lod i ........................................................................37

The FilmsO t e Road..............................................................42Forei La d.............................................................46T e Motorc cle Diaries..........................................48Be i d t e S ........................................................52Ce tral Statio .........................................................54

Ro er Ebert Review................................................58



The





Walter Salles is probably the most widely knownBrazilian director and producer. By looking at theevolution o the Brazilian ilm industry in the last 10to 15 years, you can see the impact that Salles'artistry has had. He has made the art o ilm in Brazilmore visible.

Walter Moreira Salles, Jr. was born on April 12, 1956

in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is a ilmmaker and ilmproducer o international prominence. He is the sono Elizinha Goncalves and Walter Moreira Salles, aBrazilian banker and ambassador, and the brothero João Moreira Salles, also a ilmmaker. Both, alongwith two other brothers, banker, Pedro Moreira Sallesand eldest brother and publisher, Fernando MoreiraSalles, were heirs to the bank Unibanco, one o thelargest and richest in South America.

Walter SallesA BIOgRAphy OF ThE DIRECTOR

In 2003, Salles was voted one o the 40 Best Directorsin the World by The Guardian. His biggest interna-tional success has been Diar ios de M otoc icle ta ( The

Motorc ycle Diar ies) , a 2004 ilm about the li e o young Ernesto Guevara, who later became known asChe Guevara. It was Salles’s irst oray as directoro a ilm in a language other than his nativePortuguese (Spanish, in this case) and quicklybecame a box o ice hit in Latin America and Europe.

From an international perspective, taking consoli-dated estivals and events such as Cannes, Berlinor the Oscars as well as the critics and audienceresponses in Europe and the United Sates as a re er-ence, one may associate the contemporary BrazilianCinema with Walter Salles.

Although he may be more well-known in the UnitedStates or his ilm The Motorcycle Diaries, he

actually started his international career with Central

Station (1998). The ilm's leading actress FernandaMontenegro won, among others, the Golden andSilver Bear or best movie and best actress at theBerlin Film Festival in 1998. Central Station wasalso elected as the best non-English movie at theBritish Academy Awards and the Golden Globes,without mentioning the numerous Latin-Americanawards that it has also won.

In 2005, Salles’ ilm on young Guevara, The

Motorc ycle Diar ies , was nominated or the best or-eign movie by the Golden Globes and won anOscar at the Academy Awards ceremony or the song

Al ot ro la do de l ri o by the Uruguayan songwriterJorge Drexler. The International Movie Database(IMDB) computes a total o 37 awards as well asanother 16 nominations.

My generation in Brazil was influenced by Cinema Novo . So weare echoing what’s been done way in the past.

—Walter Salles




In 2008, ilms o Salles had been selected or theo icial program o the Cannes Film Festival: Lin e

of Passage (Linha de Passe), a collaboration withDaniela Thomas and the story about our brothers

rom a poor amily and their struggle or socialrise. One o the brothers is played by Vinicius de

Oliveira, the boy rom Central Station , who, in thisilm, is trying to escape his poorness by becoming

a pro essional soccer player. Sandra Corveloni wonthe best actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival orher per ormance as his single mother in the Brazilianmegalopolis São Paulo. Salles has been also present

at Cannes through his production irm Video ilmesthat co-produced La Leonera by Argentine directorPablo Trapero.

It comes there ore as no surprise that Salles appearsin lists such as “Most in luential igures in Brazil”(Veja magazine) or “Most important Latin ilm mak-ers” (The Hollywood Reporter).

Salles’ next international project, a ilm based oncult-novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac, produced byFrancis Ford Coppola, will probably contribute moreso to his worldwide recognition.

ChILDhOOD & EDuCATIOnWalter Salles’ background has certainly contrib-uted to his requent shi ts between Brazilian relatedmovies and international productions. He wasborn in 1956 in Rio de Janeiro, but due to his ather’s

Salles is one o the most in uential fgures in Braziland one o the most important Latin flm makers oall time.

activities as a banker and diplomat, the amily livedin Paris between 1962 and 1969. Back in Rio deJaneiro, Salles studied economics and later obtainedhis masters degree in Audiovisual Communicationat the University o Southern Cali ornia.

Between 1983 and 1993 he was responsible or hun-dreds o commercials as well as a series o interviews

in the TV program Conexão Internacional on theBrazilian Channel Manc hete , which hosted guestslike Federico Fellini, Vittorio Gassman and MarcelloMastroianni. He also ilmed cultural studies o Japan and China, reportages on Brazilian artists likeTomie Ohtake and Rubens Gerchman, anddocumentaries or European TV channels like ARTE ,

France 3 and the BBC Networ k .

In 1987, Salles made another documentary or television,which would be decisive or his uture career as ction

lm maker. It was the portrait o the Polish artist FransKrajcberg (Krajcberg–Poet o the remains). To understandmore about the infuences o Salles, the main tendenciesin Brazilian cinema history is very important to know.

BRAzILIAn CInEMABrazilian cinema history began around the same timeas in Europe or the U.S. New media such as photogra-

phy and ilm arrived in Brazil quite quickly, importedmainly by oreign immigrants. Films with elaboratedplots were produced rom 1908 onwards, ranging romadaptations o novels such as O Guarani by José deAlencar to police cases like The Stranglers. A morepro essional ilm and studio structure, however,was implemented only during the 1930s, within thecontext o the e orts towards industrializationmade by the Vargas government. From the silent

My father was a diplomat for part of his life and I jumpedfrom country to country and culture to culture. So when I wasvery young, I longed for Brazil. I really wanted to know theheart of it much better than I did.

—Walter Salles




area still echoes the experimental Limite (1931), atwo hour long ilm-poem by Mário Peixoto. Its newlyrestored version was screened in 2007 at theCannes Film Festival and was one o the selected

ilms rom the World Cinema Foundation, a non-pro it organization ounded by Martin Scorsese andothers, among them Walter Salles, to provide

inancial assistance or the preservation, restorationand broadcasting o ilms rom all over the world,in particular the cinema o A rica, Latin America,Asia and Central Europe. In 1962, O Pagador de

Prome ssas , directed by Anselmo Duarte and knownin the English-speaking world as either Keepe r

of Promises , The Given Word or The Promise , wasawarded the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival,becoming the irst and so ar only Brazilian ilm toachieve such a eat. The cinema novo and mainly

Glauber Rocha’s Black God—White Devil rom1963 with its mélange o elements ranging rom theoral literature o northeastern Brazil, westerns,distancing elements borrowed rom the theater o Bertolt Brecht, and ancient tragedy as well as theinclusion o historical and mystical igures has eversince stimulated debates among the internationalcinematic community. The oundation o the state-runagency Embra ilme in 1969, requently criticized

or its dubious selection criteria, bureaucracy, avorit-ism and bad use o tax-payers money, neverthelessenabled a varied and memorable ilmography, includ-ing the most seen o all Brazilian ilms, Dona Flor

and Her Two Husbands (1976) by Bruno Barreto (basedon a book by Jorge Amado with an estimated publicaudience o 12 million), Cacá Diegues’ Bye Bye Brasil (1979) and Hecto r Bab enco’s Pixot e (1981).

In 1990, President Fernando Collor cut the centralprograms or lm sponsorship like Embra lme and scalprivileges which led to a disruption o Brazilian lmproduction. In 1991, only one national lm came on themarket: High Art , directed by Walter Salles basedon a novel by Rubem Fonseca. The lm achieved a mar-ket share in Brazil o less than 1%.

Carla Camurati’s ilm Carlota Joaquina, Princess of

Brazi l (1995) is regarded as an historical turning point in the revival o the Brazilian ilm industry, basedon new laws o tax deductions or ilm inancing.It was the irst Brazilian movie since the 1980sthat attracted more than one million viewers to thecinemas. Critics have analyzed this phenomenoninitially under the term retomada, the resumptionor renaissance o national cinema. In the numerousattempts to come to terms with this phase one may

cite two basic tendencies: one that sees the ilmso this period under certain thematic and aestheticpoints o views, as or instance in Cinema Novo:Um balanço crítico da Retomada (2003) by Luiz ZaninOricchio. The author, a journalist and critic romthe newspaper Estado de São Paulo, tries to establisha use ul taxonomy by dividing thematically themovies in categories like “History and Film” or “Privacyand Publicity”, or “Sertão and Favela”. On theother hand critics like Pedro Butcher, author o Cinema

Brasi leiro Hoje (2005), have concluded that unlikethe new cinema rom the 1960s, the retomada ilmshave no common ideological, aesthetical or ilmicbase, but only share the intention to recapture a sliceo the market share and, thereby, reestablish theBrazilian cinema as an economical actor.




—Walter Salles




Film Awards

FOREIgn LAnDSilver Daisy Awards, BrazilSilver Daisy

Entrevues Film FestivalGrand Prix, Foreign FilmGolden Rosa Camuna

São Paulo Association of Art Critics Awsards

APCA Trophy, B est S creen play

CEnTRAL STATIOnSan Sebastián International Film Festival

Audie nce Aw ardYouth Jury Award

Silver Daisy Awards, BrazilSilver Daisy

Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards2 nd Place LAFCA Award, Best Foreign Film

Havana Film Festival Award o f the Havan a Uni versi ty Glauber Rocha Award, Special MentionSpecial Jury Prize

Berlin Internatoinal Film FestivalGolden Berlin Bear

Priz e of Ecum enica l Jur y

Vancouver International Film Festival2 nd place, Most Popular Film

Satellite Awards Best Motio n Pic ture—F oreig n Lan guage

BAFTA Awards BAFTA Film Award, Best Film not i n the Engl ish L anguag e

São Paulo Association of Art Critics Awards APCA Trophy, B est D irect or

Spain Film Critics Association Awards Best Forei gn La nguage Film

Argentinean Film Critics Association Awards

Silver Condor, Best Foreign Film

MIDnIghTCinema Brazil Grand Prize

Best Dire ctor

Best Scree nplay

Ariel Awards, Mexico

Silver Ariel, Best Latin-American Film

BEhInD ThE SunHavana Film Festival

Best Dire ctor

House of th e Ame ricas Award

Silver Daisy Awards, Brazil

Silver Daisy

Venice Film Festival

Littl e Gol den L ion

SOCCORRO nOBREBiarritz International Festival of Audiovisual

Programming

Golden FIPA, Document and Essay Award

Guns and Peace

Carrousel International du Film

Camério, Best Short Film

MOTORCyCLE DIARIESSan Sebastián International Film Festival

Audie nce Awa rd

Norwegian International Film Festival

Audie nce Awa rd

Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards

2 nd Place LAFCA Award, Best Foreign Film

Cannes Film Festival

Franço is C halai s Award

Prize of E cumen ical Jury

Hollywood Film Festival

Holly wood World Award

2005 Premios ACE

Premi o ACE , Ci nema— Best Direc tor

Imagen Foundation Awards Image n Award , Be st Di rector —Film

Directors Guild of Great Britain

DGGB Award, Outsta nding Direc toria l Ac hieve ment

in Fo reign Langua ge Fi lm

BAFTA Awards

BAFTA F ilm Award, Best Film not i n Eng lish

LInhA DE pASSEHavana Film Festival

Prêmi o Qua lida de, B razi l

Prêmi o Qua lida de, B est D irect or

Prêmio Contigo Cinema, Brazil

Jury Award, Best Director

Grand Coral, Second Prize

São Paulo Association of Art Critics Awards

APCA Trophy, Best Film




—Ernesto Guevara




A Tough JourneyBRIngIng KEROuAC'S LITERARy

MASTERpIECE TO ThE BIg SCREEn

By Thomas Hawker // October 11, 2012

Brazilian director Walter Salles has carved a niche asthe 'go-to' guy or road movies. His adaption o CheGuevara's memoir, The Motorcycle Diaries, won criti-cal acclaim and the a ection o audiences.

His latest work, a movie version o Jack Kerouac'scult novel On The Road is his biggest challenge yet.Tom Hawker talks to him about the joys and pit allso translating such a seminal work o literature to thebig screen.

T H wk : What attracted you to On The Road ?Were you a an o Kerouac and The Beats?

W lt S ll s: I read On the Road or the irst timewhen I was 18, entering university in Brazil. It had adeep impact on me. It was one o the most resonant and daring narratives about youth and transition intoadulthood that I had ever read.

Be ore launching into Kerouac’s world, The Catcher

in th e Rye had been the book that had a ected memost. But, On the Road elt like a more immediateexperience, closer to what I was living or wantedto live at that age.

I was struck by the way sex and drugs were descri bedas a bridge to transcend the limited territory inwhich society tried to con ine those young men andwomen. And the idea o movement as a betterway to understand where you came rom and whoyou are rang a deep chord. Finally, the writing

itsel was striking: it was as i the typewriter was anextension o Kerouac’s body – like an instrument can be an extension o a jazz player. Years later, Ginsbergsaid, “We wanted to write and speak in public aswe used to do between us.” And this really came across.

TW: This is your second adaptation o an iconicand historic road trip (a ter The Motorcycle Cycle

Dairi es )? What do you ind so interesting about these books?

WS: They are somewhat connected. The Motorcycle

Diari es was about the irst steps o a social andpolitical revolution that would deeply a ect the LatinAmerican continent, be ore spreading outsideo its rontiers. On the Road is about the beginning

o a cultural revolution. But as John Cassady saidto us when he came to speak to the actors be ore webegan production—Sal, Dean and the other characters

I was struck by the way sex and drugs weredescribed as a bridge to transcend the limitedterritory in which society tried to confne thoseyoung men and women.




o On The Road are not aware, as they dri t insearch o the last American rontier, that this culturalearthquake would happen years later. They are intheir early 20s, in the process o experimenting, o investigating di erent orms o reedom.

TW: It's such an iconic book—were you aware o thepressure to 'get it right'?

WS: Yes, o course—as I was when we started inves-tigating the possibility o making The Motorcycle

Diaries. For that lm, I did the journey described by theyoung Ernesto Guevara twice be ore eeling apt

When we began On the Road I was ully aware that mypassion or the book and Kerouac as a writer werenot enough to start the production immediately. Thisis what triggered the idea to do a documentaryabout the possibility o making On the Road . We pur-sued this project or almost our years, retracingthe paths described in On the Road , meeting the peoplewho inspired several o the characters in the book,

and encountering poets o that unique generationsuch as Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Dianedi Prima, and Amiri Baraka. This in-depth process o research allowed us to better understand the socialand historical background related to that period, aswell as the complexities linked to the adaptation.

TW: Casting must have been di icult because everyindividual reader must have a clear idea o Sal Paradisein their own head?

The only tip I could give travellers is “travel light”.I never carry luggage that I couldn’t run with or get

into an airplane with. The more luggage in li e, the less ree you are.

WS: Yes, as I imagine so many people had in regardsto The Motorcycle Diaries . This is why we started thecasting process or On the Road early on, in 2005and 2006, and invited actors who were not only verytalented, but also who regarded the book with thesame passion and understanding with which we did.

TW: How conscious were you o having to avoid the"Beat Generation" clichés?

WS: The acts described in On the Road happenedrom 1947 to late 1950. The o icial birth o the

Beat Generation only happened ive years later, whenGinsberg, Michael McClure and other young poetsgathered in San Francisco in 1955 to read or a smallbut passionate public that were anxiously waitingto hear them.

This is when Howl was heard or the irst time.Kerouac was in the room and he would shout "go,go!" to Ginsberg. So, On the Road is not about the Beat Generation per se, but about the seeds o what would later become the Beat Generation.

Similarly, The Motorcycle Diaries was not a ilmabout the Cuban Revolution, it was a ilm about thediscovery and birth o a social and political con-science o two young men as they unveil a continent that was unknown to them.

TW: When ilming an On the Road movie, do you tryand enter the spirit o the Beats?

WS: What we tried was to ully understand themotivations o the characters described in the book,as they entered into territories unknown to themat the time, colliding against the very conservativemorals o the 40s and early 50s.

As Oliver Sacks wrote recently, we carry the need to riseabove our immediate surroundings, the need to be transported,to acquire new meaning and renew our understanding ofthe world.

—Walter Salles




TW: A ter On The Road and The Motorcycle Diaries,

making a road trip movie— or the uninitiated—sounds like un? Is it?

WS: We covered 60,000 miles to do this ilm, twiceas much as we did or The Motorcycle Diaries. To shoot ilms like this is, as you can imagine, taxing

rom both a physical and emotional standpoint.On the other hand, you end up living moments andhaving encounters that are absolutely unique,and that would never happen while shooting on asound stage in Los Angeles. As Oliver Sackswrote recently, we carry the need to rise above ourimmediate surroundings, the need to be trans-ported, to acquire new meaning and renew our under-standing o the world.

TW: On The Road inspired many people to travel? Didit inspire you to do so?

WS: When I read the book or the irst time, it cer-tainly had this a ect. And it rein orced it as I read it again and again.

TW: Are you a keen traveller?

WS: Yes, de initely…i the world can be divided intonomads and settlers—I would certainly belong to the

irst category.

TW: Do you have a avourite place to travel to?What's your avourite travelling experience?

WS: When I am in Brazil, I like to dri t to an area that is two hours away rom Rio. It's an archipelago o islands where phone reception is almost non-existent and, there ore, computer access as well. We areinvaded by a constant low o images and in ormation.As an antidote to this, I am avouring, more andmore, places where you can live according to a

di erent de inition o time. Where you can actuallyregain control o it, read a book, write, and talkwith people you haven’t met be ore without beinginterrupted by computer or telephone calls.

TW: You've made movies across the planet now—Brazil, Paris, the US, Canada and across LatinAmerica—do you get to experience, explore andenjoy the places you're ilming in? And do youhave any tips or travellers—a rule you live by whentraveling?

WS: When we shot The Motorcycle Diaries , I wasable to discover places I had never been be ore onmy own continent. It was as i my house becamesuddenly larger than it was be ore. It also made meunderstand that our continent was still a last rontier.

This is not the case o North America, where I wasstruck by the act that I could drive or 1,000 milesand ind the same architecture and ast ood chainsthat I had seen the day be ore. This is what orcedus to go urther and urther a ield to do On the Road .

The only tip I could give travellers is “travel light”.I never carry luggage that I couldn’t run with or get into an airplane with. The more luggage in li e,the less ree you are.

When we shot The Motorcycle Diaries , I was ableto discover places I had never been be ore on

my own continent. It was as i my house becamesuddenly larger than it was be ore.



2928Chasing Sunrise September 22–24, 2014A Walter Salles Film Festival The Festival



TheVenue

66 DRIVE-In ThEATREThis ilm estival is all about being ree on the openroad, so the location o the estival had to reiteratethis as well. 66 Drive-In Theatre in Carthage, Missouriwas the per ect location. Located just o the amoushighway Route 66, this drive-in theatre sets the mood

or exploration and travel.

Americans took to the road in unprecedented num-bers with the li ting o wartime rationing and travelrestrictions during the Mother Road’s golden agethat began in 1945. Businesses along Route 66 that hadendured the lean war years now reaped their reward,while the increase in tra ic was so great that it alsospawned new businesses to accommodate everyneed o postwar travelers. Although technically aninnovation o the 1930s, the drive-in theater reallycame o age during the postwar auto and travel boom

o the late 40s and early 50s. Drive-in theaters o eredmillions o (pre-television) motel guests an oppor-tunity or a ordable evening entertainment without having to leave the car or wander too ar rom theroad. Within a matter o 15 years, the number o drive-intheaters nationwide surged rom a mere 52 in 1941to 4,500 by 1956.

The 66 Drive-In in Carthage was part o that postwarwave and today is one o a very ew historically intact drive-in theaters still operating along old Route 66.It looks and eels very much as it did when it opened

or business in the ading light o September 22,

The 66 Drive-in o ers guests the opportunityan evening o entertainment without having to leavethe car or wander too ar rom the road.

1949. A striking eature o the 66 Drive-In is that it still retains its original rural setting on a nine-acreplot about three miles outside o town. Althoughoutdoor theaters were traditionally set down in ieldand pasture well beyond town, most sites today havesince been engul ed by suburban sprawl.

Almost all o the 66 Drive-In’s original structuralelements still exist and are in operation. The 66- oot high, steel ramed screen house continues itsoriginal dual role. Its ront serves as a support or themovie screen, while its outward sloping back is ahuge billboard announcing its original 1949 message:66 Drive-In Theatre Carthage, MO. Located belowthe screen is an original playground, a testament to theBaby Boom phenomenon o postwar America.The low, stucco concession stand/projection booth inthe center o the theater area and the tiny ive by




nine oot, waved glass block ticket booth at thesoutheast entrance still retain their original Art Decoand Streamline Moderne styling, evoking a modern,cutting edge eel. At the entrance, alongside oldRoute 66, stands the original steel and neon sign.

Sometime a ter 1953, a wider model covered the ori-ginal movie screen to accommodate the new type o Cinemascope craze. Visitors today will note the orest

o speakerless speaker poles—surviving theatershave long since canned the original squawk boxes orradio requency sound. A new support building onthe eastern edge o the property is an addition that wasadded at the time o the 66 Drive-In renovation inthe 1990s. The theater ran rom 1949 to 1985. A ter aperiod o decline ollowing the decommissioningo Route 66 and a nationwide all in drive-in theaterattendance, the 66 Drive-In was renovated and

reopened on April 18, 1998. The theater was listed inthe National Register o Historic Places in 2003.

The 66 Drive-In Theatre is the per ect location.From the scenic roads to the historical roots, this theatreepitimizes the ideals o a Walter Salles ilm estival.




Sunday, SepTemb er 2212Pm Opening party

A discussion panel with the Director andthe cast rom Motorcycle Diaries. Meet andgreet ans rom all over the world.

2Pm Vintage Car ShOw

Over 400 classic vehicles will travel onRoute 66 to display their historic cars just

or the Walter Salles ilm estival.

7Pm Beer and COCktailS

Enjoy a drink or three while viewing thebeauti ul display o classic cars.

8Pm On the rOad

An ad aptati on of the 1 957 n ovel of th e sam e

name by Ja ck K erouac .

TheSchedule

TueSday, SepTem ber 245 Pm 10th anniVerSary party

Celebrate the anniversary o the release o The Motorcycle Diaries during a cocktail party.

6Pm the MOtOrCyCle diarieS

A journey o the 23-year-old ErnestoGuevara, who would later become known asthe revolutionary Che Guevara.

9Pm ClOSing CeleBratiOn

monday, SepTember 2312Pm tOur rOute 66 MiSSOuri

The “Show Me State” o Missouri not onlyhas some o the most scenic views o theMother Road, it also has dozens o vintageicons along the old highway.

6Pm Behind the Sun

Its original Portuguese title meansShattered April, and it is about the code o honor during 1910 in Brazil.

8Pm FOreign land

A ter the death o his mother, a youngBrazilian decides to leave his country andtravel to her native land.

10Pm Central StatiOn

It tells the story o a young boy’s riendshipwith a jaded middle-aged woman.




econo Lodge1441 W. Central, Carthage, mO

econolodge.com // 415.358.3900

booTS moTeL107 S Garrison Ave, Carthage, mO

bootsmotel.homestead.com // 417.310.2989

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momenTS HoTeL2701 Hazel St, Carthage, mO

book.bestwestern.com // 417.359.5900

carTHage inn2244 S Grand Ave, Carthage, mO

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Super 8 carTHage416 W Fir Rd, Carthage, mO

super8.com // 417.359.9000

Whereto Stay

3938Chasing Sunrise September 22–24, 2014A Walter Salles Film Festival The Films



Road toDiscoveryChOOSIng ThE FILMS FOR ThEWALTER SALLES FESTIVAL

The Featured Films has their di erences and com-monalities. Choosing the righ set o ilms wasvery important to this ilm estival. Each ilm dealswith hitting the road and inding a sense o enlight-enment along the way. Salles' ilms express that something that almost everyone in the world hopesto achieve—the hopes o understanding the li ethey live. The di erences between these ilms are the

stories that they tell and how they each ollow adi erent path towards sel -discovery. This ilm esti-val should inspire viewers to pack up their bagsand go on a journey.




STarringgarrett hedl d as Dean Moriarty Sam Rile as Sal ParadiseKriste Stewart as MarylouAm Adams as JaneTom St rrid e as Carlo Marx Kirste D st as CamilleVi o Morte se as Old Bull LeeSteve B scemi as Tall Thin SalesmanTerre ce howard as Walter

On theRoad

On the Road is an adaptation o the 1957 novel o the same name by Jack Kerouac. The ilm stars anensemble cast eaturing Garrett Hedlund, Sam Riley,Kristen Stewart, Amy Adams, Tom Sturridge, DannyMorgan, Alice Braga, Elisabeth Moss, Kirsten Dunst and Viggo Mortensen. It was executive producedby Francis Ford Coppola. Filming began on August 4,2010, in Montreal, Quebec, with a $25 million budget.

The story is based on the years Kerouac spent trav-elling the United States in the late 1940s with his

riend Neal Cassady and several other igures whowould go on to ame in their own right, includingWilliam S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg.

A ilm adaptation o On the Road had been in theworks or years. In 1957, Jack Kerouac wrote a one-page letter to actor Marlon Brando, suggesting that he play Dean Moriarty while Kerouac would portray

Sal Paradise. In the letter, Kerouac envisioned the ilmto be shot “with the camera on the ront seat o thecar showing the road (day and night) unwinding intothe windshield, as Sal and Dean yak.” Brando neverresponded to the letter, and later on Warner Brotherso ered $110,000 or the rights to Kerouac’s bookbut his agent, Sterling Lord, declined it. Lord hoped

or $150,000 rom Paramount Pictures, which wantedto cast Brando in the ilm. The deal did not occur andKerouac was angered that his agent asked or toomuch money.

Filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola bought the rights in1979. Over the years, he hired several screenwritersto adapt the book into a ilm, including Michael Herrand Barry Gi ord, only or Coppola to write his owndra t with son Roman. Coppola saw The Motorcycle

Diari es and hired Brazilian director Walter Salles

to direct the ilm. Salles was drawn to the novelbecause, according to him, it is about people "tryingto break into a society that’s impermeable" andthat he wants "to deal with a generation that collideswith its society."

In preparation or the ilm, he made the documen-tary Searching for On the Road , in which he took thesame road trip as the lead character in the novel,

Sal Paradise, and talked to Beat poets who knewKerouac.He did this in order to understand "thecomplexity o the jazz-in used prose and the sociopo-litical climate that in ormed the period."

I know that there's no gold at the end of the rainbow. There'sjust shit and piss. But to know that, that makes me free.

—Carlo Marx, On the Road




The purity of the road, the white linein the middle of the highway unrolledthat hugged our left front tires as ifglued to our groove.

—Sal Paradise, On the Road




This beauti ully photographed black and white Brazilianmystery, Fore ign Land (Original Portuguese title:Terra Estrangeira ) chronicles the union between Paco,an aspiring actor living in Sao Paulo, and Brazilborn Alex, who works as a waitress in Lisbon, Portugal.Much o the tale is set in 1990 when Brazilianpresident Fernando Collor de Mello threw his countryinto an economic tailspin by suddenly con iscatingthe savings accounts o the entire population. At thistime, Paco is living with his elderly mother in apoor Sao Paulo neighborhood. Tired o living in squalor,the mother dreams o returning to her native Spain.When she learns that her savings have been seized,the shocked old woman drops dead. Now without his mother, Paco eels little desire to stay in Brazil andso meets with the sleazy Igor, an antique dealer,and agrees to smuggle a violin stu ed with raw

diamonds to Lisbon. Paco is to take the iddle to acertain hotel where he will be paid by the contact.Un ortunately, he arrives, but the contact doesn't.This incident leads him down a twisted road illedwith murder, danger and intrigue that eventuallyends in the arms o Alex. In many ilms, this would bethe end o the story, but not or Alex and Paco, orthey cannot relax and enjoy their relationship unlessthey can somehow escape the murderous thugs.

STarringFer a da Torres as Alex Fer a do Alves pi to as PacoAlexa dre Bor es as Miguel Tc ék Kar o as Kraft João La arto as p edro

ForeignLand




The Motorcycle Diaries (Spanish: Diarios de Mo tocicleta )is a 2004 biopic about the journey and writtenmemoir o the 23-year-old Ernesto Guevara, who wouldseveral years later become internationally knownas the iconic Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. The

ilm recounts the 1952 expedition, initially bymotorcycle, across South America by Guevara andhis riend Alberto Granado. To their surprise, theroad presents to them both a genuine and captivatingpicture o Latin American identity. As a result,the trip also plants the initial seed o cognitive disso-nance and radicalization within Guevara, whoostensibly would later view armed revolution as a wayto challenge the continent’s economic inequalities.

To prepare or the role o the young Che Guevara,Gael García Bernal went through six months o intense preparation. This groundwork o prep included

STarringgael garcía Ber al as Ernesto GuevaraRodri o de la Ser a as Alberto GranadoAlberto gra ado as Himself

MotorcycleDiaries

reading “every biography” about Guevara, travelingto Cuba to speak with Guevara’s amily, and con-sulting with Guevara’s then still living travel partnerAlberto Granado. Despite being in his eighties,Granado was also taken on as an adviser by Salles,and enthusiastically ollowed the ilm crew as theyretraced the journey.

Moreover, Bernal (who is Mexican) adopted anArgentine accent and spent 14 weeks reading theworks o José Martí, Karl Marx and Pablo Neruda(Guevara’s avorite poet). Bernal told reporters “I eela lot o responsibility. I want to do it well because o

what Che represents to the world. He is a romantic.He had a political consciousness that changed LatinAmerica.” As Bernal experienced locales in Chile,Peru and Bolivia; with social conditions unchanged orworsened since Guevara passed through a hal o acentury be ore, he took to heart Guevara’s interna-tionalist assertion in a “ iction o nations.” Accordingto Be rnal, the role crystallized his “own sense o duty”because Guevara “decided to live on the side o themistreated, to live on the side o the people who haveno justice - and no voice.” In surmising the similar-ities between his own personal trans ormationand Guevara’s, Bernal pos≠its that “my generation isawakening, and we’re discovering a world ull o incredible injustice.”

The best teacher is experience and not through someone'sdistorted point of view.

—Ernesto Guevara, Motorcycle Diaries

Guevara “decided to live on the side o themistreated, to live on the side o the people whohave no justice—and no voice.”




Just like Don Quixote had Rocihante,San Martín had his mule, we have themighty one.

—Alberto Granado, The Motorcycle Diaries




Behind the Sun (Portuguese title: Abril Despedaçado)is a 2001 Brazilian ilm directed by Walter Salles,produced by Arthur Cohn, and starring Rodrigo Santoro.Its original Portuguese title means Shattered April,and it is based on the novel o the same name (ori-ginal Albanian title: Prill i Thyer) written by theAlbanian writer Ismail Kadare, about the honor culturein the North o Albania.

The year is 1910; the place, the badlands o Northeast Brazil. Twenty-year-old Tonho is the middle son o an impoverished arm amily, the Breves. He is next inline to kill and then die in an ongoing blood eudwith a neighboring clan, the Ferreiras. For generations,the two amilies have quarreled over land. Nowthey are locked into a series o tit- or-tat assassina-tions o their sons; an eye or an eye, a tooth ora tooth. Embedded in this choreography o death is a

STarringVi íci s de Oliveira as "the Kid"José D mo t as the father

Rodri o Sa toro as TonhoRita Assema as the Mother Ravi Ramos Lacerda as PacuL i Carlos Vasco celos as SalustianoFlávia Marco A to io as ClaraEveraldo po tes as Old Blind Man

BehindThe Sun

particular code o ethics: “Blood has the same volumeor everyone. You have no right to take more blood

than was taken rom you.” Li e is su used with a senseo utility and stoic despair. Tonho must make adecision to continue this amily eud, or inally put an end to it.




Central Station (Portuguese: Central do Brasil )is a 1998 Brazilian-French drama ilm set in Brazil.It tells the story o a young boy's riendship witha jaded middle-aged woman. The ilm was adaptedby Marcos Bernstein and João Emanuel Carneiro

rom a story by Walter Salles and it was directed by thelatter. It eatures Fernanda Montenegro and Vinícius deOliveira in the major roles. The ilm's title in Portuguese,Central do Brasil, is the name o Rio de Janeiro'smain railway station. The ilm premiered at the 48thBerlin International Film Festival.

Dora (Fernanda Montenegro) is a cynical and sel ishormer schoolteacher who earns a living writing lettersor the illiterate in Rio de Janeiro's busy railroad

station. Viewing most o her clients as "trash," shenever even mails their missives.

STarringFer a da Mo te e ro as DoraVi íci s de Oliveira as Josué

Marília pêra as IreneSoia Lira as AnaOt o Bastos as César Otávio A sto as PedrãoStela Freitas as YolandaMat e s nac ter aele as IsaíasCaio J q eira as Moisés

CentralStation




Nine-year-old Josue (Vinicius de Oliveira) comesto the station with his mother, who has Dora writea letter to his ather in a araway town. Then hismother is struck and killed by a bus. With nowhere togo, Josue (Vinicius de Oliveira) sleeps in the station.Dora reluctantly takes him to her cramped apartment where he inds the letter with his ather's address.But the next day, she sells him to some people whoclaim to be in the adoption business. She buys anew television with the money rom the transaction.Her riend Irene is horri ied at her callousness.The boy, she warns, is in real danger o being killed

or his organ parts. Dora decides to rescue himand return him to his ather. The two get on a busand lee the city.

All the world's religions celebrate compassion asthe quivering o the human heart in response to

su ering. Central Station depicts the slow openingo Dora's heart as she and Josue travel across Brazil.A ter she tries to abandon him once, and he losesall the money she gave him, they are picked up by a

riendly undamentalist Christian truck driver.Dora welcomes this respite rom her loneliness, but he rushes o once he realizes she is interested in himphysically.

The miraculous hatching o Dora's heart occurswhen they end up in the middle o a rural religiouspilgrimage. Once again, the old woman becomesa letter writer, but now she approaches it di erently.Perhaps or the irst time in her li e, she senses her

The joy that compassion brings is one o the bestkept secrets o humanity.

Since I've been on the road I feel like I've changed my life tentimes over again.

—Dora, Central Station

kinship with other people and their mutual yearningor love and connection. Further experiences with

the boy awaken within her a tenderness or li e. Sheis trans ormed by the end o the journey. Catholicwriter Henri J. M. Nouwen once wrote, "The joy that compassion brings is one o the best kept secretso humanity." This extraordinary ilm publishes that secret, and we receive it with tears and glad tidings.




Story ofYoung CheThE MOTORCyCLE DIARI ES

By Roger Ebert // October 1, 2004

Focus Features presents a ilm directed by WalterSalles. Written by Jose Rivera. Based on books by CheGuevara and Alberto Granados.

The Motorcycle Diaries tells the story o an 8,000mile trip by motorcycle, ra t, truck and oot, romArgentina to Peru, undertaken in 1952 by ErnestoGuevara de la Serna and his riend Alberto Granado.I Ernesto had not later become "Che" Guevara and

inspired countless T-shirts, there would be no reasonto tell this story, which is interesting in the manner o a travelogue but simplistic as a study o Che's polit-ical conversion. It belongs to the dead-end literarygenre in which youth ul adventures are described,and then "...that young man grew up to be (BenjaminFranklin, Einstein, Rod Stewart, etc)."

Che Guevara makes a convenient olk hero or thosewho have not looked very closely into his actual

philosophy, which was repressive and authoritarian.Like his riend Fidel Castro, he was a right-wingerdisguised as a communist. He said he loved the peoplebut he did not love their reedom o speech, their

reedom to dissent, or their civil liberties.

But all o that is ar in the uture as Ernesto andAlberto mount their battered old 1939 motorcycle androar o or a trip around a continent they'll be

seeing or the irst time. Guevara is a medical student with one year still to go, and Alberto is a biochemist.From the alarming number o times their motorcycleturns over, skids out rom under them, careens intoa ditch or (in one case) broadsides a cow, it would appearneither has ever been on a motorcycle, either.

First stop, the arm o Ernesto's girl riend, whose richather disapproves o him. Chichina (Mia Maestro)

hersel loves him, up to a point: "Do you expect me

to wait or you? Don't take orever." Shy around girlsand not much o a dancer, Ernesto is unable to saywhether he does or not.

The ilm, directed by Walter Salles ("Central Station"),ollows them past transcendent scenery; we seeorests, plains, high chaparral, deserts, lakes, rivers,

mountains, spectacular vistas. And along the waythe two travelers depend on the kindness o strangers;

they're basically broke, and while Ernesto believesin being honest with people, Alberto gets better resultsby conning them.

They do meet some good new riends: A doctor in Lima,or example, who gets them an invitation to stay

at a leper colony. The sta at the colony, and the lepers.A armer and his wi e, who they meet on the road,and who were orced o their land by evil capitalists.Day laborers and their sadistic oreman. A garage




owner's lonely wi e. To get to the leper colony, theytake a steamer down a vast lake. Guevara stands inthe stern and looks down at a shabby smaller boat that the steamer is towing: This is the boat carryingthe poor people, who have no decks, deck-chairs,dining rooms, orchestras and staterooms, but must hang their hammocks where they can.

By the end o the journey, Ernesto has undergone aconversion. "I think o things in di erent ways,"he tells his riend. "Something has changed in me." The

inal titles say he would go on to join Castro inthe Cuban Revolution, and then ight or his causein the Congo and Bolivia, where he died. His legendlives on, celebrated largely, I am a raid, by people onthe le t who have sentimentalized him without looking too closely at his belie s and methods. He is anaw ully nice man in the movie, especially as played

by the sweet and engaging Gael Garcia Bernal ( rom"Y Tu Mama Tambien"). Pity how he turned out.

But seen simply as a ilm, "The Motorcycle Diaries" isattenuated and tedious. We understand that Ernestoand Alberto are riends, but that's about all we indout about them; they develop none o the complex-ities o other on-the-road couples, like Thelma andLouise, Bonnie and Clyde or Huck and Jim. Thereisn't much chemistry. For two radical intellectualswith exciting utures ahead o them, they havelimited conversational ability, and everything they sayis generated by the plot, the conventions o thesituation, or standard pieties and impieties. Nothingis startling or poetic.

Part o the problem may be that the movie takesplace be ore Ernesto became Che, and Alberto(played by Rodrigo de la Serna) became a doctor who

opened a medical school and clinic in Cuba (where hestill lives). They are still two young students, middleclass, even naive, and although their journey changesthem, it ends be ore the changes take hold. (Note:To be air, I must report that a Spanish-speaking riendtells me the spoken dialogue is much richer thanthe English subtitles.)

Salles uses an interesting device to suggest howtheir experiences might have been burned into theirconsciousness so that lessons could be learned.He has poor workers, armers, miners, peasants, beg-gars, who pose or the camera, not in still photos,but standing as still as they can, and he uses black andwhite or these tableaux, so that we understandthey represent memory. It's an e ective technique, andwe are meant to draw the conclusion that the adult Che would help these people.

As a child I aith ully read all o the titles in a bookseries named Childhoods o Famous Americans.George Washington chopped down a cherry tree,Benjamin Franklin got a job at a print shop, LutherBurbank looked at a peanut and got thought ul. Thebooks always ended without really dealing withthe adults those children became. But, yes, in retro-spect, we can see how crucial the cherry tree,print shop, peanut and Che's motorcycle were, because

Those Young Men Grew Up, etc. It's a convenient ormula, because it saves you the trouble o dealing

with who they became.




—Jack Kerouac

64Chasing Sunrise A Walter Salles Film Festival



Copyright © 2013 Ashley Ng

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