Director

Walter Salles

Brazil, France | 1998 | 113 min | Portuguese, German with subtitles in English

• Producer Arthur Cohn, Martine de Clermont-Tonnerre
• Production Company
• Screenplay João Emanuel Carneiro, Marcos Bernstein
• Cinematography Walter Carvalho
• Editing Felipe Lacerda, Isabelle Rathery
• Sound Jean-Claude Brisson, François Groult, Mark A. Van Der Willigen
• Cast Fernanda Montenegro, Vinícius de Oliveira, Marília Pêra
• Contacts

  VideoFilmes

  contato@videofilmes.com.br

About the Film

Central Station, Walter Salles’ handsomely crafted film that carries on the neo-realist tradition, begins in Rio de Janeiro's crowded train station, through which an estimated 300,000 people pass each day. Sitting at a makeshift desk, we meet Dora (Fernanda Montenegro), an older, cynical woman who earns a living there by writing letters for illiterate Brazilians.

Among Dora’s patrons is a woman whose 9-year-old son, Josué (Vinicius de Oliveira), wants to meet the father he has never known. But after dictating two letters to the father, who is said to live somewhere far to the north, the mother is struck by a bus and killed. Josué, now motherless, embarks on an odyssey by traversing the country in search of his father. Dora, a woman without a family, and with a desire to reconcile her past troubled relationship with her own father, acts, at first, as a grudging chaperone to Josué on this journey.

A true road movie, the film showcases Brazil's colorful landscapes, picturesque views of the rural hinterlands, and its people's rich cultural traditions. But the crux of the film lies not so much in whether Josué is able to find his father, but rather, how the unlikely pairing of a dour, initially unfriendly woman with a lost, confused young boy can blossom into a strong bond of mutual caring and interdependence. The superb acting by the "Grande Dame” of the Brazilian theater earned Montenegro numerous accolades, including a Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival, and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.