Golden Gate

Fernando Ferreira Meirelles is a Brazilian film director, producer and screenwriter. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director in 2004 for his work in the Brazilian film City of God, released in 2002 in Brazil and in 2003 in the U.S. by Miramax Films. He was also nominated for the... Golden Globe Best Director award in 2005 for The Constant Gardener, film which garnered the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress to Rachel Weisz. Meirelles' father, José de Souza Meirelles, is a gastroenterologist who travelled regularly to Asia and North America , which gave Fernando the opportunity for contact with different cultures and places. His mother, Sônia Junqueira Ferreira Meirelles, is the daughter of farmers and worked with landscape architecture and interior design for a long time. Fernando is the second youngest of four children. He saw his older brother, José Marcos, die in a car-bike accident when he was only 4 years old. His two sisters, Márcia and Silvinha, graduated in theater and psychology, respectively.
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Kátia Lund is an American-Brazilian film director and screenwriter. Her most notable work was as co-director of the film City of God. Lund's parents are Americans who emigrated to Brazil before she was born. She graduated from Escola Maria Imaculada, an American Catholic school in São... Paulo where she excelled in art. She then attended Brown University where she became interested in filmmaking. After she graduated magna cum laude, she landed jobs as an assistant director on many music videos, commercials and films. Having grown up in a middle-class family, she had little knowledge of the plight of those living in Rio de Janeiro's favelas. Then, she was hired to work on the Spike Lee-directed music video for Michael Jackson's "They Don't Care About Us" which was filmed in a favela. The experience opened her eyes and she became determined to make films about the dwellers of these poor neighborhoods to help raise social consciousness in Brazil. She has caused controversy for her friendship with, and admiration for, deceased drug dealer Marcinho VP.
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