First of all, we wanted to be faithful to the two books that inspired Jose Rivera's screenplay and to the spirit of the original journey.

With Central Station, the story was basically about the recuperation of one's identity and also, an investigation into the country's identity.

There are still 500,000 persons afflicted with leprosy in Latin America, so it is still very much present.

On the Road' is a seminal book that gave voice to a whole generation -- capturing its hunger for experience, unwillingness to accept imposed truths and dissatisfaction with the status quo. It is as modern today as it was four decades ago.

So I had this idea for the film but I was shooting Foreign Land and I had written 10 pages on it about what the story should be.

The other aspect is that you become much more aware of the structural problems that pertain to that continent. You feel the need to act to try and solve them.

I come from a country and also a continent whose identity is in the making. We're a very young culture, and I think that things are not yet crystallised.

But I also think that the more you reason collectively about what the project should be at the beginning of the process, the more you can improvise later.

Also, there are now new laws in Brazil which create incentives for Argentine and Latin American films to be premiered and distributed in Brazil and vice versa.

No, I worked a lot for European television, doing documentaries in Brazil.