Daily Inspiration Quote by Walter Salles

Salles is doing two things at once: pledging local loyalty while quietly indicting the way “global” cinema gets distributed. The line starts with responsibility to “first-time film-makers in Brazil,” a phrase that sounds generous but also strategic. He’s naming an ecosystem problem: talent exists, but access doesn’t. By positioning himself as a bridge, he’s using his prestige to reroute attention and resources toward people who rarely get the industry’s benefit of the doubt.

Then he widens the frame to “dialogue between film cultures,” which reads like diplomacy until you hear the implied complaint: our screens are curated by gatekeepers with narrow tastes and narrower business models. “Really wonderful” carries an almost impatient warmth, as if he’s tired of having to sell the obvious quality of neighboring or kindred cinemas. The kicker is the comparative: these cultures are “so much closer to us” than what we do see. Closer geographically, historically, linguistically, emotionally - yet replaced by faraway product engineered for maximum export.

Context matters. Salles comes out of Brazil’s post-Retomada generation, when national cinema rebuilt itself while still fighting for shelf space at home. He’s also an international operator, which makes this less a sentimental appeal than a critique from inside the machine: cultural proximity doesn’t beat marketing gravity. The intent is to normalize South-South exchange and regional curiosity, not as charity, but as a corrective to a screen culture trained to look elsewhere first.