Blindness

Blindness (2008)

Timing: 2:1 (121 min)

6.514/10
1335

6.602/10
26263

6.5/10
77000

All about film

Video 0

Photo 15

Actors and characters

Release date

2008-05-14

Country

Brazil, Canada, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States

Production

Focus Features, Miramax, Potboiler Productions, Téléfilm Canada, Rhombus Media, Alliance Films, O2 Filmes, GAGA Communications, Corus Entertainment, Movie Central, Agência Nacional do Cinema - ANCINE, 20th Century Fox Brazil, Asmik Ace Entertainment, Mikado Film, Bee Vine Pictures, BNDES, Cinema Investment, Fiat, Independent Film Fund/CINV

Genre

Drama, Mystery, Science Fiction, Thriller

Budget

$25 000 000

Revenue

$19 844 979

Website

http://www.blindness-themovie.com/

Director

Fernando Meirelles

Actors

Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Gael García Bernal, Maury Chaykin, Alice Braga, Don McKellar, Sandra Oh, Yûsuke Iseya, Yoshino Kimura
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Niv Fichman, Andrea Barata Ribeiro, Bel Berlinck, Sonoko Sakai, Sheena Macdonald, Sari Friedland, Larry Weinstein, Austin Wong, Claudia Büschel, Aeschylus Poulos

Operator

César Charlone

Composer

Marco Antônio Guimarães

Artist

Audition

Susie Figgis, Deirdre Bowen

Editing

Daniel Rezende
All team (35)

• The film is based on José Saramago’s novel “Blindness” (Ensaio sobre a cegueira, 1997).
• Initially, Daniel Craig was supposed to play the main male role. However, due to his commitments to other projects, the role went to Mark Ruffalo.
• The film is based on a novel by the Portuguese writer and Nobel laureate, José Saramago. The book was published in Portuguese in 1995, and then two years later it was translated into English and published under the title “Blindness” in the United States.
• Initially, the author of the book was very wary of selling the rights to it and the possibility of a film adaptation. Fernando Meirelles himself was also rejected. The ice was broken when producer Niv Fichman and future screenwriter Don McKellar visited José Saramago at his home in the Canary Islands in 1999. A mandatory condition from the writer was that the action in the film should not be tied to any real existing country.
• The author of the book, José Saramago, very much wanted to see the premiere of the film at the Cannes Film Festival. His doctors did not allow him to travel due to his health, and in response, the director himself flew to Lisbon to show the film to the writer.
• Director Fernando Meirelles initially planned to shoot the film in Portuguese, but then abandoned this idea, believing that it would initially significantly limit his audience.
• Approximately 700 extras were involved in the film's production and were specifically trained to portray blindness. Christian Vuurvoort, who appeared in the director's previous film "City of God" (2002), and Barbara Christine Sweet served as special trainers for this aspect.
• The film provoked a strongly negative reaction from the American Foundation for the Blind and other organizations representing the interests of the blind and visually impaired. In a press release issued before the premiere, Dr. Marc Maurer, Chairman of the American Foundation for the Blind, stated that the film and the book depict blind people in a negative light in the United States and around the world. Protests were planned and held in many states immediately before the film's premiere.
• Around the 40th minute of the film, during a scene about a widespread epidemic, crashing planes, and chaos in the transportation system, a fragment of black-and-white CCTV footage from the Lefortovo Tunnel in Moscow is shown.
• The film is based on José Saramago's novel "Blindness" (Ensaio sobre a cegueira, 1997).