I met Ana Cristina Costa e Silva in 2003 in Brasilia, through a Paris’ business connection of Brazilian origin who had put me in touch with the young Brazilian producer a year before, as part of the contacts that I was making at the time around my documentary film project Brasilia. Travel to Dawn.
Taking advantage of my trip to Brazil that year, an appointment was made in Brasilia at Dharma Filmes (Ana Cristina's production company), in order to discuss her intervention’s modalities on the production of this film project. A project the realization of which was subject -as it is always- to all imaginable vagaries and difficulties that any other production in its category would meet. But on top of that, this production was dependent on a specific major challenge, which was its prerequisite : namely, Oscar Niemeyer’s essential collaboration. A compulsory step, without which all the projected downstream collapsed. In fact, the real keystone of a film which meant to be a roaming in the Brazil of the 1950s and a time travel back to the its capital’s building years. A city which had forever marked the second half of the XXth century with the seal of audacity, innovation and modernity.
This adventure (and what remains of it today), owes a lot to Ana Cristina and Fernando Lemos, even though circumstances did not allow its completion ; it was the young woman's personal ties with Fernando Lemos, a journalist and a once close collaborator of Oscar Niemeyer, that fostered access to the architect. Ana Cristina was thus able to send my presentation document of the film to Oscar Niemeyer, who took knowledge of it and accordingly gave his consent.
One must be able to imagine what the scope of such a decision could represent at the time, and its extraordinary character : back then, Oscar Niemeyer was indisputably a true icon of architecture in the whole world (some would not hesitate to use even the word "star"). But in Brazil, Oscar Niemeyer was in addition a living legend, which the architect’s affirmed political commitments and strong statements had largely contributed to boost.