Boys from Brazil

For eight years, Paulo Lins sat at his window in a crowded shack in City of God, one of the most dangerous favelas, or ghettos, in Rio de Janeiro.

Each time he saw someone who looked interesting walk past, he would dive through the doorway, engage him in conversation and then return to his desk to write up the story.

The result, a 600-page novel spanning three decades and teeming with more than 300 characters, became an instant best seller in Brazil, a shocking eye-opener for the country's complacent middle class.

Now it has been made into a movie. Fernando Meirelles, previously unknown outside Brazil, became the talk of Cannes when his film of the book premiered to ecstatic reviews at the festival last May. It was acquired for US and British distribution by Miramax, which is grooming the movie for an Oscar push.

Amid their praise, many critics in Cannes questioned the film's extravagant body count. "It's not a show of violence," Meirelles insists. "It's reality. I could have had people dying in slow motion, with blood exploding. In City of God, people die like nobody cares. They die off-camera a lot of times. You don't even see them."

In Brazil, the film's authenticity is undisputed. City of God has been endorsed by politicians who have themselves risen from the favela. The incoming President, Luiz Inacio Da Silva, used the film in his election campaign, and the Governor of Rio, Benedita Da Silva, proclaims on her placards that she is "female, black and from the slums".

"When she saw the film," Mereilles recounts, "she said, 'I was at the party you show at the climax of the film. I know those people. This is the story of my life.'"

The film is shot in the heart of Rio's favelas, but it is no plodding social exposè. Meirelles, 47, tells his story with thrilling energy, a rich seam of humour and a technical brilliance perfected during his years as one of Brazil's busiest directors of television commercials.

He became involved in movies in 1996 when a friend became pregnant in mid-shoot and he took over her half-finished work. City of God is his third feature-length film.

Virtually all the roles are taken by real street kids. Seu Jorge, who plays a sharpshooter, was 20 when he saw his brother killed by a rival gang. "His family had to split up and he went to live on the streets for seven years," says Meirelles. Leandro Firmino Da Hora, 23, a deceptively gentle-eyed young man who plays the chief villain, practised pounding a pile of mattresses to develop the bulging eyes of a psychopath. "We didn't have to do a lot of acting-lab preparation to understand our characters," he says.