A Brazilian stamps the list of nominees for the Oscars 2022, revealed this Tuesday morning (8). the carioca Pedro Kos is among the nominees for best documentary short film with “Lead Me Home” on Netflix.
The filmmaker shares the direction of production with American Jon Shenk. Kos already had the experience of having been editor of other Oscar-nominated films such as “Lixo Extraordinário” (nominated in 2011) and “The Square” (2014), but this is the Brazilian’s first nomination as a director of his own film.
“As you can imagine seeing my name on this list was a dream come true. An honor to wake up to the news of this nomination and I share it with my co-director Jon Shenk, with our entire team and with the wonderful people we met in the process of developing this short, people who told their stories, our neighbors who live on the street and who taught us that there are many more things that unite us than separate us. They inspired us and I dedicate everything in their honor,” Kos tells us.
“Where I Live” is an American production and a Netflix original documentary that shows the reality of homeless people in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, on the American West Coast. Kos says that he started recording without much pretension, as it is a situation that accompanies him on a daily basis in Los Angeles, a city with more than 63,000 people in this situation, according to the 2020 census.
“At first we thought, ‘Who would want to buy a movie about homelessness?’ We did it because we wanted to, it was one of the biggest risks of my career. I risked a lot and we weren’t winning anything. I only did it because I fell in love with the people and the subject,” says Kos.
Filming began in 2017 and the film was released in late 2021 on the streaming platform.
“It’s been several years talking to people, going to camps and shelters, talking to entire families who live on the streets and have nowhere to go at the end of the day. The process moved me a lot, it opened my eyes in a way I didn’t expect. It transformed our lives, the way we see life and our society”, says Kos.
The carioca had the support of non-governmental organizations that provide assistance to the homeless and that played a role in the presentation of the characters. The documentary is 39 minutes long.
“Of course, I am very happy with this nomination, but what I want most is for people to connect with these stories, get to know these people and remember that when they meet someone who is on the street”, says the Brazilian filmmaker.
The hard campaign always so expensive and full of lobbies to try to get a spot on this much-desired list was spearheaded by the streaming platform Netflix that bought the project already in production, and put it on the list of originals.
“As it is an original of theirs, they were left with the task of setting up the award campaigns, online releases, in cinemas, at festivals, the conversations with the public. We did a lot of events in New York, San Francisco, here in Los Angeles. I haven’t stopped traveling lately. But what I always highlight, that the best thing about being on these platforms is the amount of people who have access to our work”, he reveals.
Who is Pedro Kos
Kos reveals that he became the filmmaker he is today by listening to his grandmother’s stories in Rio de Janeiro. As a teenager he moved to New York and studied theater directing at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and his first job in the field was as an assistant on the movie “Frida”.
“I was the assistant to the assistant to the assistant. I started by washing the window and taking coffee and little by little I got into it, grating and making room.”, she says.
In the beginning, he started as an editor and so, in 2011, he had the experience of seeing the film he edited, “Lixo Extraordinário” – which had the participation of the artist Vik Muniz -, be nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best Documentary.
“This was my first experience with the party, the directors (Lucy Walker, Karen Harley and João Jardim) took me to the ceremony and it was wonderful”, says he, who also edited “The Square”, nominated in 2014. In 2017, Kos wrote the script for the popular documentary “Hacked Privacy”, which was on the list of 15 shortlisted for the Oscars, also as Best Documentary.
The carioca also reveals that despite being out of Brazil for more than two decades, he has never lost his link with the country and that if he wins the Oscar, of course it will be a Brazilian Oscar.
“Obvious! I’m just 1000% Brazilian, my heart is completely Brazilian”, he jokes.
But says he prefers to keep his feet on the ground and put his noblest goals ahead.
“I am very lucky to do what I do and tell stories that show who we are and where we are. In this awards bubble, I’ve been around the circuit as an editor before, but I think it’s really important not to get carried away, because it’s a bubble and the bubble sometimes bursts. I try to take it with realistic expectations and if it doesn’t happen, I made a movie that changed my life, look how amazing”.
Pedro Kos also had a feature-length documentary nominated for an Oscar, but it was not shortlisted. The American production “Rebel Hearts” (Rebel Hearts in free translation, Discovery+), is about nuns who faced the patriarchy of the Catholic Church and fought for gender equality, in the 1960s, in Hollywood.
Source: CNN Brasil
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