"Amado is the best Brazilian writer. He portrayed the Brazilian spirit to the world."

"In a year where Brazilian cinema is under serious threat of death from its own government, watching and celebrating it is a must."

"This Brazilian film explores the way that social class divisions inform and confine us, and the horrified responses that can erupt when someone pushes back against that. It examines precisely how change can happen in small increments, leading to a definite and satisfying result."

"This is from a fantastic 1950s film that exposed Brazilian music to the outside world. It's the story of Orpheus set to Brazilian carnival, and it's very beautiful, melancholic, and full of these really captivating rhythms. I got into it first on tour doing OK Computer, a time where I felt very lost, personally and emotionally, which felt ridiculous when I was on the top of the world with my band. Inside, I needed to sort my shit out, and this album allowed me to cry. A few years later, my first son kicked for the first time when he heard his, and that's why we called him Salvador.
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"Saulo Pereira de Mello just passed away this week at ninety-two. He’s the archivist who worked for years on Mario Peixoto’s legacy on film and in writing. Mr. Pereira de Mello also played a major role in the difficult restoration of this ninety-year-old Brazilian dream masterpiece, which can be discovered by so many through Criterion."

"After our son Walker couch-surfed in Rio last year, we felt obliged to take in one of the Brazilian friends he met. She brought a copy of Sebastião Salgado’s beautiful but expensive book Genesis. We felt bad because she doesn’t have a lot of money and also because it is in Portuguese. However, 95% of the book consists of Salgado’s brilliant photographs, which need no translation. It seems that the people with the least often give the most."

"I love films that are great not only in themselves but in the idea of them that stays in memory. But this then can dwarf the actual film, which perhaps it has in the case of Black Orpheus—some aspects now try one’s patience slightly. A few years back a Brazilian film was touted as the realistic and gritty version of the story, by those who knew the actual milieu—another black eye for realism and grit."