Walter Salles · 1998 · road

Walter Salles's 1998 Brazilian film. Dora, a jaded retired schoolteacher who writes letters for the illiterate at Rio de Janeiro's Central Station, reluctantly takes in a boy orphaned in a street accident. Together they journey deep into the arid northeastern backlands of Brazil in search of the father he has never met, and the hard road transforms them both.

1. 1
   Rio de Janeiro

   The chaotic Central Station where the embittered Dora writes letters for the poor, and where a boy named Josue is left orphaned and alone after his mother is killed outside.

2. 2
   The sertao

   The dry, hardscrabble backlands of northeastern Brazil into which Dora and Josue travel by bus and truck, searching for the father he has never known among the pilgrim towns.

3. 3
   Bom Jesus

   The remote interior town at the journey's end, where the search for the boy's family reaches its bittersweet resolution and Dora quietly finds her own redemption.