I think anybody who was ever saddened by a movie theater closing would be able to understand this film [Aquarius].

Nobody who comes out of the movie [Aquarius] focuses on those [sexual] scenes, because they are not the heart of the film. They are a consequence of the story, but I don't remember hearing audiences talking about them afterward. They came out discussing themes of resistance, history and memory. They're talking about the beauty of the self and how it can become demolished.

Everybody else is going to react differently to the film [Aquarius], but what I love about it is that both men and women are going to react to it because they will find themselves represented.

The film [Aquarius" ] is very, very successful. We had the highest per-screen average of last week's releases.

It's so sad to me [see the director's versions of films] because it shows how the filmmaker never got to make the film he had originally envisioned. You watch it and go, "Oh my god, he had to cut that scene! I can't believe it."

In Brazil, there is a fear and a denial of our past. Downtown Rio used to display the history of colonialism in Brazil. They had beautiful buildings and theaters, and there was a bakery that was threatened to be demolished, but people insisted against it. They laid down in front of it and said, "You're going to have to go over my body to destroy it." It frustrates me when I see people on Facebook posing in front of old buildings while on vacation, because they could've posed in front of equally beautiful buildings at home in Rio.

You see all these old buildings [in Rio] going down or catching fire overnight, and it is so sad. I am very connected with these buildings because they are our history. It is the only one that we have.