But the exasperated police did more than just write editorials. After the movie's premiere, the directors would twice be called in for questioning, and threatened with criminal charges for contempt and "personal favoring" with the drug traffickers. Maggessi said she was particularly interested in what Meirelles could tell her about the Miner, who had since been released on bail but remained one of her principal targets. When Meirelles delayed the questioning, Chief Maggessi speculated, "He is scared. He doesn't want to mess with Miner and the Red Command."
Meirelles concedes the point: "During the whole process of the film, that was the only time I ever was scared, scared that the traffickers would think that I was collaborating with the police."
MEANWHILE, AS THE RIO POLICE sought to embarrass Meirelles and Lund, at movie theaters across the vast Brazilian nation, City of God was catching fire. Within a month of opening, Meirelles' film had broken the million-viewer mark and surpassed other popular Brazilian phenomena, such as Walter Salles' 1998 Central Station. Many of the children in the film have been lifted out of their hardscrabble lives to become movie stars in Brazil. The film has also made Meirelles, the head of a successful ad-production company in São Paulo, a serious commodity. His 2001 feature, Maids, had drawn praise for its sophisticated but unpretentious look at the life of domestic workers in São Paulo; Golden Gate, a short that he and Lund used as a kind of practice run for City of God, had won a series of festival accolades from Aspen to Berlin. But following the release of his latest work, people have begun to refer to Meirelles as the Martin Scorsese of South America, and the big Hollywood offers have come rolling in. Meirelles has turned them all down, however, and is embarking upon a new film adventure: "It is going to be in several different countries, a comedy about globalization."
City of God made a big splash at Cannes and won first prize at the Latin American Film Festival in Havana. It is the official candidate from Brazil for this year's "best foreign" Oscar. Most important, City of God has generated heated debate in Brazil among a morally awakened middle class and the favelados alike. By now, the controversy over the directors' methods has been subsumed by the magnitude of the work itself. Still, and despite its impact, Meirelles does not believe that City of God can do more than make people aware of a seemingly intractable national plague. "The story of City of God begins 40 years ago, but it is still going on, and it is getting worse — more wasted young lives, more violence," says Meirelles. "We have reached a new limit. This film cannot change that."
