Walter Moreira Salles Júnior (; born 12 April 1956) is a Brazilian filmmaker. Early life Salles was born on 12 April 1956 in Rio de Janeiro and attended the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. He is the son of Brazilian banker, politician and philanthropist Walter Moreira Salles. Film career Salles's first notable film was Terra Estrangeira (Foreign Land), released in Brazil in 1995. Locally, it was widely acclaimed by film critics and a minor box-office hit, and it was selected by over 40 film festivals worldwide. In 1998 he released Central do Brasil (Central Station) to widespread international acclaim and two Academy Awards nominations, for Best Actress in a Leading Role and Best Foreign Language Film. Salles won a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, becoming the first Brazilian to win a Golden Globe. In 2001, Abril Despedaçado (Behind the Sun), based on a novel by Albanian author Ismail Kadare and starring Rodrigo Santoro, was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Golden Globes. Salles said: ".. there was one book that resonated to the point where I couldn't forget it. And that was 'Broken April' by Ismail Kadare. The book was handed to me by my younger brother, who said, 'If I know you well, this will touch you.' ... What really struck me was the opposition between the atavistic violence described in the book and the possibility for that violence to be overpowered by the discovery of poetry and literature and ultimately by brotherly love." Both films were produced by veteran Arthur Cohn, and had worldwide distribution. In 2003, Salles was voted one of the 40 Best Directors in the World by The Guardian. His biggest international success has been Diarios de Motocicleta (The Motorcycle Diaries), a 2004 film about the life of young Ernesto Guevara, who later became known as Che Guevara. It was Salles's first foray as director of a film in a language other than his native Portuguese (Spanish, in this case) and quickly became a box-office hit in Latin America and Europe. In 2005, Salles released his first Hollywood film, Dark Water, an adaptation of the 2002 Japanese film of the same name. He also helped to produce the Argentine picture Hermanas, which was a major success. In 2006, Salles wrote and directed a segment in the French film Paris, je t'aime (French for "Paris, I love you") with Daniela