Meirelles: If you do a film with a high budget, people want to control it. Marketing people tell you what to do, and where to cut, so they can get their money back. I am more interested in doing smaller films that I can control.
Meirelles: This is the part that I like most, in the process, is to edit and try to find the story. Sometimes you think you have a film, and then you change something and it becomes different. It's a wonderful job. Because it surprises you.
Meirelles: (About The Constant Gardener) In Kenya, the faces of the people, the colors, I wanted to bring as much of the landscape to the screen as I could... That's why I thought we should shoot in Kenya with a small crew - you just turn the camera around, and the real thing is happening here. If you do it big - lights, crew - you turn around and there's only crew, and it affects everything all around.
Meirelles: (About the comparisons of City of God and Pulp Fiction) Pulp Fiction is quite different from City of God because
Meirelles: (About the impact of City of God) The film was such a hit in Brazil because of all the debates it provoked. I've been to a lot of universities and unions with the film. Lula (Brazil's president, Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva) came to me and said that my film changed his policies of public security. It was great to hear that.
Meirelles: (On the pharmaceutical industry) But at the same time, they are very powerful and extremely profitable, because they produce these great pills. It is the second most profitable industry in the world. Just arms manufacturers, who only kill people, ironically are the only industry more profitable than drugs.
As of 2006, Meirelles is rumored to be in the running to direct yet another espionage film, a biopic about notorious international terrorist Carlos the Jackal. Spanish actor
City of God was released in 2002 and received an American release in 2003 by Miramax Films.
He was nominated for an Academy Award for Directing in 2004 for City of God. He lost to
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