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Central Station

Directed by Walter Salles
Brazil
1998
110 mins

Synopsis

A beautiful melodrama, this crowdpleaser classic is wonderfully acted by Fernanda Montenegro, and Vinicius de Oliveira, she is a retired teacher in her 60s and letter writer for hire at Rio’s central railway station, he is a 12-year-old orphan.

They might be read as two sharp representations of a divided Brazil, the southeast and the northeast. The widescreen cinematography by Walter Carvalho keeps Brazil in frame as the third main character. Walter Salles would do another classic in I’m Still Here (2024) recently. 4K restoration.

-Kleber Mendonça Filho, Curator

Tickets

Sat 13 June 2026, 2:45pm
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Assisted ListeningWheelchair
  • Program Strand
    The Tropical Trail
  • Original Title
    CENTRAL DO BRASIL
  • Year
    1998
  • Classification
    M
  • Country
    Brazil, France
  • Language
    In Portuguese with English subtitles
  • Director
    Walter Salles
  • Producer
    Martine de Clermont-Tonnerre, Arthur Cohn, Walter Salles
  • Cast
    Fernanda Montenegro, Vinícius de Oliveira, Marília Pêra
  • Screenwriter
    João Emanuel Carneiro, Marcos Bernstein
  • Cinematographer
    Walter Carvalho
  • Editor
    Isabelle Rathery, Felipe Lacerda
  • Company Credits
    Sales Agent: Playtime

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