I come from a country and also a continent whose identity is in the making. We're a very young culture, and I think that things are not yet crystallised.

Also, I knew that the impact of Motorcycle Diaries was going to be so resonant for all of us who went through the experience of making it that I didn't want to do anything that could reflect it.

The Sundance Institute has been vital to the film communities of Latin America.

No, I worked a lot for European television, doing documentaries in Brazil.

Also, there are now new laws in Brazil which create incentives for Argentine and Latin American films to be premiered and distributed in Brazil and vice versa.

The films that I've done before were original stories most of the time, I did two adaptations before this, but they were mostly original stories where I had complete freedom to evolve in the direction I wanted.

I'm much more interested in living specific experiences in films.

So the search for a father in Central Station is also a search for a country.

So when I was very young, I longed for Brazil.

It was a complex endeavor so without Robert Redford's constant support we wouldn't have gotten to the end.

The Peruvian faces are completely different from that faces in Argentina and in Brazil.

And my generation in Brazil was influenced by Cinema Novo. So we're echoing what's been done way in the past.

I did documentaries for maybe 10 years before I turned to fiction films.

So I feel a responsibility to help first-time film-makers in Brazil, but also to increase the dialogue between film cultures which are really wonderful and so much closer to us than what we do see on our screens.

On the contrary, I'm a strong believer in the necessity of imperfection coming into the film.

I come from Brazil, which is a Portuguese speaking part of the continent.

I went to Cuba maybe eight or nine times.

That's why I have always admired documentaries, because they open windows that can make you understand much better where you come from, much better than fiction, I think.

We all knew the book well because it's the cult book in Latin America. For me, this was a sacred territory. I would not have ventured into it by myself.

The other aspect is that you become much more aware of the structural problems that pertain to that continent. You feel the need to act to try and solve them.

My father was a diplomat for part of his life and I jumped from country to country and culture to culture.

The necessity to conceptualise has to come very early on, and defining a vector of development for that film also at the beginning of the process will allow you much more freedom as you go along.

There are still 500,000 persons afflicted with leprosy in Latin America, so it is still very much present.

A filmmaker can never be distant from his roots.

When I come to London, I always like to see what's playing at the NFT.

But I also think that the more you reason collectively about what the project should be at the beginning of the process, the more you can improvise later.

I come from a country and also a continent whose identity is in the making. We're a very young culture, and I think that things are not yet crystallised.

But like the rest of the country, Maine has reached an impasse, for most of the mercury that fouls our skies, waters and land comes from outside our borders.

Education is the cornerstone of our communities and our country.

For a country to have a great writer is like having another government. That's why no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.

The successful establishment of a buffer zone around Fort Carson will provide an example for other bases around the country as we seek to protect the training mission of the U.S. military while preserving critical habitats on our ranges.

Then, in that hour of deliverance, my heart spoke. Does not such a country, and such defenders of their country, deserve a song?

Prosperous farmers mean more employment, more prosperity for the workers and the business men of every industrial area in the whole country.

You look at the whole Human Rights questions, I happened to be there at just the right time when the country was awakening - this goes to the first question you asked - the whole country was awakening to a hundred years of injustice that hadn't been resolved yet.

It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler when they preach discrimination against other religious, racial or economic groups.

So, for example, a country was into recession right after I was sworn in, a dot-com bust had taken place. Then the attacks of September the 11th, and then of course the great financial meltdown in the -the fundamental question facing any presidency is how do you deal with the hand you're dealt?

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

The day cold and fair with a high easterly wind: we were visited by two Indians who gave us an account of the country and people near the Rocky mountains where they had been.

It was clear that the special interest groups in California really wanted the Chinese to be shut out of the country, because that was where the racial tension was the greatest.

Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

Disney had such a hold on the mind of America-they were Adolf Hitler. The whole country thought Disney was some sort of god and that animation was some sort of pure thing for children.

To stop terrorists before the strike, we must do three things: deny them entry into the country, curtail their freedom of action inside the country, and deprive them of material and moral support from within the country.

As I think through the issue of funding the rebuilding of Iraq, I think about the analogy of a bankruptcy proceeding. There is no doubt that Iraq as a country is bankrupt.

I have some strategical vision, I could calculate some few moves ahead and I have an intellect that is badly missed in the country which is run by generals and colonels.

Yesterday in this country we had people die of hunger and malnutrition. In some parts of this country, the infant mortality rate rivals that of sub-Saharan Africa. We have a public education system that ranks below that of almost any other Western nation.

When I reached adulthood, even now, I could afford to belong to a country club. But I could never belong to a private club because of my experience as a child, because it would isolate me from the whole of humanity.

The Clinton administration launched an attack on people in Texas because those people were religious nuts with guns. Hell, this country was founded by religious nuts with guns. Who does Bill Clinton think stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock?

The whole country is one vast insane asylum and they're letting the worst patients run the place.