Fernando Meirelles

Born in ‘the city that can never stop’, as Sâo Paulo (Brazil) is called, Fernando Meirelles (November 9, 1955) is the son of a middle-class doctor. He studied architecture at the university in his hometown, where he discovered his passion for cinema, and began shooting experimental videos with a group of friends. After winning several awards at film festivals, the group formed a small company called Olhar Eletrônico.

Fernando Meirelles hardened himself on the small screen, a medium in which he was working for 9 years. He produced programs like ‘TvMix’ and directed the children’s series ‘Rá-Tim-bum’, which gained enormous popularity and has been broadcast for more than two decades. Later, he dedicated himself to shooting commercials. But he was always very clear that what interested him most was cinema, and he founded his own production company O2 Filmes. He debuted on the big screen in 1998 with Menino Maluquinho 2: A Aventura , a family film, which he co-directed with Fabrizia Pinto. It did not have a great impact, and it was very far from the cinema that interested Meirelles. His second job, Domestic , was much more personal.–co-directed by Nando Olival– where he reflected his social concerns by following in the footsteps of five maids, with various concerns: one is looking for a husband, another for a lost son, etc.

Meirelles’ life changed completely when the harsh novel ‘Cidade de Deus’ came into his hands, in which Paulo Lins portrayed the living conditions in a suburb of Rio de Janeiro, from the late 60s to the 80s. The filmmaker realized that it could make a great movie, despite the fact that the original text featured some 350 characters. But Meirelles was lucky to have the inspired screenwriter Bráulio Mantovani , who condensed the essentials of the text with an exemplary adaptation. Meirelles got down to work together with his co-director on this occasion, Kátia Lund. The film focuses on the life journey of two children, Buscapé and Dadinho, who grow up in one of the worst neighborhoods, between robberies, fights and confrontations with the police. Buscapé dreams of being a photographer, while Dadinho –later known as Zé Pequeno– tends to become a dangerous criminal. To shoot this film, with a hyper-realistic style, close to documentary, and impressive planning, Meirelles and Lund brought together more than a hundred young actors from the suburbs, with whom they worked in a special workshop for eight months. City of Godbecame one of the great phenomena of Brazilian cinema of all time, which in addition to winning the Golden Globe for best foreign film, grabbed four Oscar nominations. In addition, it gave rise to the television series Cidade dos Homens , later made into a film. Meirelles served as producer in both cases and was in charge of directing 4 episodes of the series.

A worldwide phenomenon, Meirelles was recruited as director of the British-German production The Constant Gardener , an equally faithful adaptation of John Le Carré ‘s novel . Ralph Fiennes played a British diplomat, who investigates the death of his wife ( Rachel Weisz ), related to a corruption scheme that has to do with the pharmaceutical industry. He earned four other nominations, though this time Rachel Weisz took home the award for best high school.

The adaptations of novels have given him such good results that Meirelles decided to also take ‘Essay on blindness’ to the cinema. The best-known work by the Portuguese José Saramago gave rise to Blindness , where the blindness epidemic that devastates a large city becomes a metaphor for the extreme individualism and selfishness of modern society. It featured a strong international cast including Julianne Moore , Mark Ruffalo , Danny Glover , and Gael García Bernal .

Married to the dancer Ciça Meirelles, the filmmaker has been the father of two children. Established as one of the great directors of his country, he has had time to support other filmmakers by producing titles like The Pope’s Bath and Not by Chance .