ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 offers biographical and film historical clues to Walter Salles’ multifaceted oeuvre as filmmaker, film producer (e.g. as co-founder of Videofilmes) and key cultural agent (e.g. as someone directly related to the Instituto Moreira Salles). An overview of his films (including the ones co-directed with Daniela Thomas) is provided, and attention is paid to the relationship between Salles’ films and the New Latin American Cinema movement from the 1960s, as well as the Retomada from the 1990s onwards (closely connected to Salles’ Central Station ). Transnationalism and an interest in youth are presented as overarching features of his work, and are related to specific genres, such as the road movie, and to specific motifs, such as brotherhood and cultural identity. The end of the chapter zooms in on The Motorcycle Diaries in relation to the rest of Salles’ oeuvre, pointing at convergences as well as discrepancies.
