| Director: Fernando Meirelles |
Based on Paulo Lins’ first-hand account of the ruthless gang war which raged for years in Rio De Janeiro’s labyrinth of slums, City Of God is a sweeping tale filled with enough vivid characters and searing stories to fill several good films.
Director Fernando Meirelles made the bold decision to recruit many of the children in the cast directly from the Rio slums and encouraged them to improvise the majority of their lines.
It was a gamble which paid off.
The results are right and true in a way that polished Hollywood pictures can never be and the final outcome is a film that not only tells a deeply compelling story of crime, slum culture, and youthful ambition but is also so gripping it’s almost impossible to look away from.