The filming in Canoas gave me the opportunity to meet Ana Lucia Niemeyer de Medeiros, granddaughter of the architect and Niemeyer Foundation’s chairman (this former family house had become the Foundation’s headquarters at the time, before being later housed in Niterói, within the Caminho Niemeyer buildings, an architectural complex designed and built by the architect near Rio de Janeiro.

I remember Sound Engineer Bruno Foznandos’ anecdote during one of our pre-shoot meetings. Bruno had reported that during a previous shoot at the architect's studio, Niemeyer got up after two or three questions and left the room, crashing production and journalists and leaving the team crestfallen, saying he didn't have time to waste with silly questions ; needless to mention the state in which these confidences put me ... No matter how much I knew my subject by heart, no matter that I had prepared my questions and my interview plan as meticulously as possible, anything could happen ... even the worst.

Fortunately, some sort of foreboding or a glimmer of light from Heaven, maybe both, made me translate all of my questions into English the night before I met the architect. Our hotel did Xeroxes on the morning of the translations, so that I could give to Ana Cristina this English questions set, just in case : Ana Cristina did not speak French, I could not speak Portuguese and therefore we both communicated exclusively in English.

On our interpreter-translator Silvana Zilli's side, her only assigned task was to record in her notebook in writing each of Oscar Niemeyer's answer and comment in both French and Portuguese, strictly following their numbering so that I could manage by myself later, should I have to start any editing back in France. Taken over by this mission, Silvana therefore would not be able to ensure the translation of my questions to Niemeyer into Portuguese, in case that became necessary.