Sônia Braga reacted in a beautiful way to the draft I sent her, so we just made the film ["Aquarius"] as I had written it. Emilie [Lesclaux], my wife and producer, told me, "This is not a two-hour film. This is going to be longer." And I said, "Well, let's try and make it work, whatever length it is."

When I wrote the script [of "Aquarius"], it seemed to hold people's interest.

I'm not saying that we need more stories about people of a certain age, we just need more great stories about people.

I think the film [Aquarius] comes from that original feeling I had 18 years ago, when I was in a São Paulo supermarket. I was in line to pay for something, and when I looked up, I saw the little windows of a projection booth. That's when I realized the supermarket used to be a movie theater. They didn't even bother to change the walls. Years ago, "The Sound of Music" could've been playing in that space.

When was it that people decided as a society that your body is in one place and your sexuality in another place, something like a hat, or a coat, that when you leave home you hang it and when you come back home you say, "Ah! Let's wear my sexuality! I might wear it tonight"? It is something that belongs to your body.

When you actually see it, it is quite strong, but there's nothing really pornographic about it. They are high-impact yet very short moments of sexuality, which makes it very confusing for the censors. If censors were merely human beings who watch a film ["Aquarius"] and come out with a conclusion about what they saw, then there wouldn't be a problem.

It's like I'm stuck in a time bubble. Memories keep coming back, and of course, memories are a huge part of literature and cinema, from "Stand by Me" to "Blade Runner."