Walter Salles

Walter Salles' work, both as a documentary and filmmaker, centers around the themes of exile, displacement and the search for identity.

Behind the Sun (Abril Despedaçado), based on Ismail Kadaré's novel "Broken April", was nominated for Best Foreign Film by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the National Board of Review and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Behind the Sun won the Audience Award (Leoncino d'Oro) at the 58th Venice International Film Festival.

Central Station (Central do Brasil) his previous film, won 55 international awards, including the Golden Bear at the 1998 Berlin International Film Festival, the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film, the National Board of Review Award for Best Foreign Film, and the British Academy Film Award for Best Foreign Film.

Foreign Land (Terra Estrangeira) shot in 1995 and co-directed by Daniela Thomas, was named Best Film of the Year in Brazil in 1996. Foreign Land won 8 international awards (including the Audience Grand Prize at the Rencontres Internationales de Cinéma de Paris and at the film festivals of Bergamo and Belfort; Best Film of the Year, according to the public and critics, from the Association of Critics - SESI) and was selected by over 40 film festivals.

His documentaries, including Socorro Nobre/Life Somewhere Else and Krajcberg, the Poet of the Remains (Krajcberg, o Poeta dos Vestígios) have won awards in many international festivals, including the Fipa d'Or, and the Best Research Documentary and the Audience Prize at the Festival dei Popoli in Italy.

Salles also produced this year the first feature films of young Brazilian directors such as Karim Aïnouz's Madame Satã, Kátia Lund and Fernando Mereilles' Cidade de Deus, and Sérgio Machado's documentary At the Edge of the Earth (Onde a Terra Acaba).