Also, I knew that the impact of Motorcycle Diaries was going to be so resonant for all of us who went through the experience of making it that I didn't want to do anything that could reflect it.

I come from a country and also a continent whose identity is in the making. We're a very young culture, and I think that things are not yet crystallised.

So the search for a father in Central Station is also a search for a country.

So I feel a responsibility to help first-time film-makers in Brazil, but also to increase the dialogue between film cultures which are really wonderful and so much closer to us than what we do see on our screens.

We all knew the book well because it's the cult book in Latin America. For me, this was a sacred territory. I would not have ventured into it by myself.

'On the Road' is a seminal book that gave voice to a whole generation -- capturing its hunger for experience, unwillingness to accept imposed truths and dissatisfaction with the status quo. It is as modern today as it was four decades ago.