The author, poet and scriptwriter Paulo Lins was raised in the Cidade de Deus or ‘City of God’ in the 1960s and 1970s, and saw the Rio de Janeiro favela he lived in catapulted to notoriety by his own 1997 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. Cidade de Deus was initially considered untranslatable, as the book’s thick Rio vernacular had no English equivalent—however, his memoirs went on to become an international bestseller, culminating in Fernando Meirelles’ critically acclaimed 2002 film starring Alexandre Rodrigues and Seu Jorge. “He comes across as casual yet incredibly articulate and with very good word play,” says director Klaus Thymann of Lins, who he shot on location in his son’s apartment in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro where Lin still lives, set to the bass and beats of “Brazilian Thought” by American producer Dr. Who Dat?. As a boy, Lins started writing by transcribing neighborhood samba musicians’ Carnival lyrics, often reediting their text with his own poetic flourishes. The skill earned him security from gangs, and he grew up as both local sociologist and trusted voice of the favela. The Afro-Brazilian dance has been a significant inspiration throughout his career, being dubbed the ‘Gil Scott-Heron of samba’ for his poetry and featuring as the focus of his 2012 novel, Desde que o Samba é Samba (Then There Was Samba). “[Noble Prize-winning poet] Octávio Paz says art is the mother of society and everything is replaceable, apart from art,” says Lins. “The culture of a community is the collection of our great-grandfathers’ stories and beliefs, representing the feelings of a people—this is what I reflect upon.”