Natural light and working with actors and non-actors

All the studies we made eventually also determined the texture of the film, from structural choices to the props we used, like the wheel of the sugarcane crusher that dictates the inexorable cycle the Breves family can't escape.

As I said, Kadaré's book struck me both by its intimate family drama and by the epic scale of the story. In a similar way, I sought to structure Behind the Sun on the opposition between different states of being. Between immobility and movement; between archaism (the world of the Breves family) and modernity (the world beyond their gate); between the order decreed by the father and the disorder heralded by Pacu, the youngest brother; between time viewed as the cyclical repetition of the wheel of the crusher and time suspended, when Tonho and Clara are falling in love.

Together with my friends from my other film projects, such as director of photography Walter Carvalho and assistant director Sérgio Machado, we chose to film on location, whenever possible using the dramatic natural light of northeast Brazil. As in Central Station and Foreign Land, we also chose to mix experienced actors such as José Dumont with non-actors. The casting process conducted by Sérgio Machado consumed a year of work. More than 1500 people were auditioned. Only nine professional actors worked in the film. All of the others are making their debuts in Behind the Sun. The boy Ravi Ramos Lacerda (Pacu) comes from street theater, Flavia Marco Antonio (Clara) from the circus.

For almost two months, actors and non-actors prepared for their roles in the actual locations of the film. Often they lived without electric light, learned to work with animals, how to operate the sugarcane crusher, cut cane and make molasses.

To make Behind the Sun, each member of the film's first unit traveled more than 12,000 miles (20,000 kilometers) on bad roads. Every day, we drove more than 120 miles (200 km) by car to get from the town where we slept to the set. The average temperature was over 100º (40º c.). For all these reasons, Behind the Sun was a difficult film to shoot. But leaving that universe, at the end of filming, was even more difficult.

Next, some information about the research on blood feuds in Brazil. And also, some observations about avenging the blood, the blood stained shirt and other symbolic elements that appear in Ismail Kadaré's book - and in Greek tragedy.