Pix is probably the most successful payment infrastructure run by a government in history. I think Pix has been what has allowed a country like Brazil to leapfrog developed economies like the U.S. and in Europe, and has positioned Brazil today probably five years ahead of the U.S. I don't think anybody understands that, and probably in the U.S. they didn't really expect that.

I'm writing with a clear lesbian agenda in the novels. It's right there at the heart of the books.

I think feedback is coaching. Sometimes it’s hard for people to hear feedback.

We focus on people and on cultivating local leadership: Wendy Kopp

No. Go for it, as I did it. Go for all the mistakes. I made so many mistakes in doing my films. They all have a stutter or a limp or they are squint-eyed. Hardly anyone notices it, but I notice. Make your mistakes. Get arrested if you trespass. Yes. Do it. There’s nothing wrong with spending a night or two in jail. I’ve done that. Don’t be afraid of the grizzly bear behind you. Travel on foot. Read books.

It’s how we are made as homo sapiens. We are biologically organized to cover distances on foot. That’s what we did for tens of thousands of years until we started to use horses, of course, until the mechanical age. And I would not call it “walking” because it’s not going out for a stroll or going out for a “power walk” or ambling in your city. It’s “traveling on foot.” You are reading the world, learning the essence of the world.

Roll up your sleeves and work as a bouncer in a sex club or a warden in a lunatic asylum or a machine operator in a slaughterhouse. Drive a taxi for six months and you’ll have enough money to make a film. Walk on foot, learn languages and a craft or trade that has nothing to do with cinema. Filmmaking — like great literature — must have experience of life at its foundation. Read Conrad or Hemingway and you can tell how much real life is in those books.