Walter Salles, Jr.

Biography: Walter Salles, Jr.

Director/writer Walter Salles Jr. spearheaded the return of Brazilian cinema to international prominence in the latter half of the 1990s, particularly with his esteemed hit Central Station (1998). Born in Rio de Janeiro, the son of a well-heeled banker, Salles was raised in France and the United States before Brazil became his permanent home during his teens. Too young to have been part of Brazil's Cinema Novo in the 1960s and 1970s, Salles entered the Brazilian film industry as an award-winning documentary filmmaker during the industry's 1980s/early-'90s decline. After he moved to fiction with the hriller Exposure (1991), Salles' feature career was stalled by Brazil's disastrous economic freeze in the first half of the 1990s. Though he remained active by making documentaries for European television, Salles opted to stay in Brazil and made one of the first key films in the industry's resurgence, Foreign Land (1995). Co-directed by Daniela Thomas, the internationally acclaimed Foreign Land addressed the fallout from Brazil's economy through a mystery yarn set in Brazil and Portugal, as one man's financial desperation sets the plot in motion. Salles' next film, Central Station, helped seal Brazilian cinema's revival. Inspired by his documentary Life Somewhere Else (1995), partly funded by a Sundance Film Institute award and shot by a neophyte film crew, Central Station's metaphorical road story unstintingly revealed the harsh effects of Brazil's poverty while mining profound emotion from the reluctant relationship between Fernanda Montenegro's cynical letter writer Dora and motherless innocent Vinicius de Oliviera. A festival smash and international hit, Central Station won the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival and received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film, while stage star Montenegro earned several critics' and festival awards and a Best Actress Oscar nod for her restrained performance. Collaborating again with Thomas, Salles followed up his breakthrough success with the millennial tale Midnight (1998), part of the 2000 Seen By... series for the French-German television station Arte that also included films by film festival favorites Hal Hartley and Alain Berliner. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide less

Find videos of Walter Salles, Jr.Free Walter Salles, Jr. videos

Movies (11)
Web Video Search

To Each His Own Cinema (2007)
Cast: Ethan Coen Roman Polanski Andrei Konchalovsky Claude Lelouch Ken Loach
Length: 119min
At the time of its production, To Each His Own Cinema represented the latest arrival in a tidal wave of internationally oriented omnibus films, with no official relation between them but all produced within a few years of one another. Few could claim...
Find Videos

Linha de Passe (2008)
Cast: Walter Salles, Jr. Roberto Audi José Geraldo Rodrigues Kaique de Jesus Santos Sandra Corveloni
Tags: Drama Ensemble Film Juvenile Delinquency Film
Length: 108min
Motorcycle Diaries director Walter Salles Jr. helms this story of a band of brothers intent on getting out of the Brazilian ghetto in a Media Rights Capital production. Co-directing is Daniela Thomas, from a script she wrote with George Moura (Moro No...
Find Videos

Dark Water (2005)
Cast: Jennifer Connelly Angelo Badalamenti Tim Roth John C. Reilly Pete Postlethwaite
Tags: Haunted House Film Horror Psychological Thriller Supernatural Thriller
Length: 105min
Directed by Walter Salles Jr., this remake of Hideo Nakata's supernatural psychological drama Honogurai Mizuno Soko Kara revolves around the plight of a single mother (Jennifer Connelly) whose messy divorce and subsequent battle for the custody of her...
Find Videos

Paris, Je T'Aime (2006)
Cast: Gérard Depardieu Ethan Coen Christopher Doyle Alexander Payne Alfonso Cuarón
Tags: Romantic Drama Drama
Length: 120min
Twenty acclaimed filmmakers from around the world look at love in the City of Lights in this omnibus feature. Paris, Je T'Aime features 18 short stories, each set in a different part of Paris and each featuring a different cast and director (two...
Find Videos

Central Station (1998)
Cast: Fernanda Montenegro Walter Salles, Jr. Kátia Lund Marilia Pera Othon Bastos
Tags: Road Movie Drama
Length: 110min
Former documentary filmmaker Walter Salles (Foreign Land) directed this Brazilian-French road movie tracing the travels and travails of a young boy and an aging woman across the Brazilian landscape. In Rio de Janeiro's central railroad station,...
Find Videos

Loin du 16ème (2006)
Cast: Walter Salles, Jr. Daniela Thomas Catalina Sandino Moreno
Tags: Melodrama Drama
Length: 5min
Part of the anthology Paris, Je T'Aime, this short comes from directors Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas. Starring Catalina Sandino Moreno, Loin du 16ème concerns a South American immigrant nanny who, on a daily basis, must leave her infant in day...
Find Videos

Behind The Sun (2001)
Cast: Walter Salles, Jr. Rodrigo Santoro José Dumont Luis Carlos Vasconcelos Ravi Ramos Lacerda
Tags: Family Drama Rural Drama Drama
Length: 105min
A young man is forced to choose between family tradition and his own dreams and desires in this drama from Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles. In 1910 in a remote farming community, two families, the Breveses and the Ferreiras, both of whom earn their...
Find Videos

The Motorcycle Diaries (2003)
Cast: Robert Redford Gael García Bernal Walter Salles, Jr. Gustavo Bueno Mía Maestro
Tags: Biopic Coming-of-Age Road Movie Drama
Length: 128min
Brazilian director Walter Salles Jr. follows up the Golden Globe-nominated Behind the Sun with this filmed adaptation of Argentinian-born Cuban revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara's journals of the same name. The Motorcycle Diaries stars Gael García...
Find Videos

Midnight (1998)
Cast: Walter Salles, Jr. Daniela Thomas Carlos Vereza Matheus Nachtergaele Fernanda Torres
Tags: Melodrama Urban Drama Drama
Length: 66min
This 1 million Brazilian feature, co-directed by Walter Salles (handling the camera) and Daniela Thomas (handling the actors), is another in the "2000 Seen By..." series of Millennium-themed films co-produced by France's Haut & Court. As Millennium...
Find Videos

Foreign Land (1995)
Cast: Walter Salles, Jr. Tchéky Karyo Daniela Thomas Fernando Alves Pinto Fernanda Torres
Tags: Thriller Chase Movie Romantic Mystery
Length: 100min
This beautifully photographed black and white Brazilian mystery chronicles the union between Paco, an aspiring actor living in Sao Paulo, and Brazil-born Alex, who works as a waitress in Lisbon, Portugal. Much of the tale is set in 1990 when Brazilian...
Find Videos

Walter Salles, Jr.

Biography: Walter Salles, Jr.

Searching for videos...

Related Clips

Share This Page

Video Search