The Chronicles of Curious Characters

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Chronicles of Curious Characters and I do

have another character sitting on the opposite side of the table in front of me.

I would like to welcome Phil or Philip, I don't know what you prefer, to the show. Hi Phil.

Hi everyone, I'm Phil. It's okay, short, it's easier. I'm glad to be here.

Interesting experience, my first time in a podcast as a guest.

It's so great to have you here, and you are experiencing the podcast slightly differently

as well because you are producing something for the people interested in Luxembourg and

living in Luxembourg, but maybe we'll talk about that later.

At the beginning, if you could maybe tell a few words to our listeners, who you are,

where you're from, and how the heck did you end up in Luxembourg?

Thanks, that's a good question. So I'm Brazilian by origin.

I was born there in the south of Brazil, the southmost state near the border of Argentina and Uruguay.

I lived there for about 21, 22 years. So I went to college there.

And after I finished college, my idea was already to come to Europe.

My family, it's of Italian origin. So I already had Italian citizenship as well, dual citizenship.

And this helped me. So after I finished college, I thought, okay, so what is the next step?

So maybe let's try Europe. And so I went to Portugal first.

That's kind of a natural move for Brazilians at the end because of the language and culture.

It's very similar between the two countries. After I finished college, I moved to Portugal to start a master's degree.

I spent about two years in Portugal as well.

Just to put into context, my bachelor's was in international relations,

so that's an area which I'm very fond of.

Diplomacy, economy, relation between countries, geopolitics,

and in an academic sense it's very interesting, very nice,

but then after in the career-wise it's a bit complicated to develop.

But still, I went to Portugal and did the Master's also in International Relations, the same area as my Bachelor's.

So I arrived in Portugal in 2019 and right away, one month before the classes started.

I started to get a feeling of the country, but there is very easy adaptation.

It's something completely different as Luxembourg, it's more of a cultural shock, I would say.

For this part was quite nice and after two or three months there, I was already thinking of course, will I start working, will I just be here studying, you know, it's a bit complicated financially wise saying, and then I was already interested in finance, so it's connected to international relations in many ways, and then I start applying to banks, so financial sector,

Also some things, international relations, more related, but it's very limited in Portugal.

So I end up going to banking.

So I was doing the two things at the same time, so a master and working.

So it was quite a challenge. So basically I started working at 8am, finished at 5, took the metro, went to the classes,

finished at 10, come back home and do it all over again.

So it was a two very challenging years for me, but also career-wise was the right move for sure.

When I finished the master's and I was ready two years there, I already had some experience

and had a good education.

So we allowed me to try to move somewhere where, I mean, culturally Portugal is good,

but salary-wise wages are not good.

Lisbon has a big problem with housing as Luxembourg of course but it's maybe a

bit more complicated than Luxembourg even. So after these two years finished

masters, good experience, let's start sending CDs. Where? Well I want to continue in banking so we got to see maybe Switzerland, maybe London and then.

I see nice opportunities you know in LinkedIn or something Luxembourg.

Oh Luxembourg. Okay let me do a little research, let me dig up a little bit and see what is this country, what happens there.

And then I started doing my research and I found very interesting, such a small country,

the position, and then the language. So at first I was like, okay, so people speak French more

there or Luxembourgish, what is the deal? Or German or English.

German, exactly. That's interesting as well. I thought there will be more German here.

But I don't see that much. Of course, Luxembourgish and German are similar in some ways.

A bit different but I think they can understand each other until some point.

Well I start sending CVs and I got this manager calling me and saying well we want to come to Luxembourg you know you do the same thing that you were

doing Portugal but in a higher position higher level and I say yes okay I want

to do that and he was like okay but are you ready for this change because here is different.

Are you ready for Luxembourg? Yes, exactly.

He was very, it was, he really outlined this, you know, look, the weather is not the same

as Portugal. It's not the same as Brazil.

Well, we are recording it on the 12th of June and I think the weather is very much now it

is like in, uh, in Portugal and maybe in Brazil. Yeah. To be honest, yeah.

Of year, but let's say that there you have these many months of the year, while, whereas

here it's a bit, actually, yeah, two or three months like this, and I guess six or seven.

And those long periods of winter with no light, short days, I think this is the biggest difference

are the short days and lack of sun.

And then he told me, okay, are you ready for this? And I said, let's do it.

And I didn't look back, you know, I thought, okay, I feel like my career here in Portugal

is not going to go anywhere.

Maybe when I retire, I can come here and live here, but right now nothing will happen.

So let's take the next step.

Even if it is, it is a challenge as for everyone that comes here and you don't really know

because you read a lot of things, you watch a lot of videos maybe, but when you come here,

it's always different.

Right. But for me, it was actually a positive difference. I was expecting like nothing to do, just work and go home, work and go home, make some money

and that's it. Like a typical finance sector, right?

Yeah. Yeah. It's important to say that.

I would say that today, of course, IT is growing a lot here, but finance is still the heart

of the Luxembourgish economy and are still in the past, but that's done.

And now they are focusing so much on finance and IT and they need people, they need qualified people. attractive.

Of course, the salaries are the highest in the European Union, right, if you look at the average.

But of course, there is the problems of the housing and some situations where maybe it's becoming more

difficult to attract talent here because of that. Even if you offer a higher salary to young people,

and we see a lot of people coming here because of that, even experienced professionals,

younger people coming out of the master college. And this attractivity needs to be controlled,

I would say, because the situation needs to be controlled. Otherwise, you're just going to

lack people in a very short period. It will start to happen. I mean, I think it's already about.

Yeah. I mean, I mean, look at how many cross-border workers there are. Well,

some people are living outside of Luxembourg because it's a bit cheaper to rent or buy

something abroad, but also there are so many people commuting to Luxembourg because they,

found a job. They already lived in the past before they started working in Luxembourg,

they lived abroad, Germany, France, Belgium. Yeah, no, that's true. And there's also a

phenomenon that is the same thing that is happening in Lisbon at the moment, which is

the locals are being driven away from the city. So it's becoming even difficult for the locals

because of all the speculation to live in the city so they're being pushed away and this causes.

So much confusion. But then okay I said I'm ready for the challenge let's do it and I did it two

years ago I changed I believe it was 2021 yeah so around maybe October 2021 I came and it was still

some COVID restrictions in order. There was these protests against the vaccine and all

the situation happening at the city. So every time that I came out of the house, it was

a bad weather and people complaining and protesting. But this was, let's say, the negative part

of the first impression. But then with time I started to, I found a place to live, which,

which is a bit complicated as well for people coming here, but it took me 2 or 3 months

in an Airbnb until I found an actual apartment, then I moved to the apartment and then my

routine started getting more interesting.

At the beginning I was basically alone in the office because the people were not being

called back to the office yet, everyone is working from home.

This was also kind of a challenge, but also in Portugal at the end there was the same restrictions.

So we were basically working from home and sometimes going to the office and there was no one there.

Strange times for everyone.

And then things started picking up, people started getting back to the office.

I started to make some friends. Of course, it's difficult to make friends here in Luxembourg.

I think it is an experience that everyone goes through.

If you are a French speaker, maybe it's a bit easier. or even Italian speaker, there's a lot of Italians here, unfortunately I'm not either, I don't speak either languages.

But some friends of mine came here as well to work, some people that I knew back from college was here, so

we kind of, I kind of made some friends, so I was not completely alone,

which was good because I ran my family's in Brazil, so I was here.

But this helped me as well, COVID restrictions wearing down with time,

The weather got better so I came here in October, November and then it was terrible for some months.

Then everything started getting back to life, I started to know some people, make some friends.

And at the end this is what kept me here and I didn't say okay I will leave this place and work was okay as well.

So here I am, two years later in Luxembourg.

At some point around six months ago, I decided to start a podcast in English, which I saw that was something that was lacking.

We, me and you, and maybe a couple more people do this in English here, so I said, okay, there's space for this.

There's space for this. A lot of people are listening to podcasts these days. Also, I think this is a legacy from the COVID time,

where people were alone at home as well and trying to listen to podcasts and this grew a lot of course podcasters are older but they got hyped.

And this is quite nice actually, and it's interesting for you to hear someone talking,

I mean maybe you're having this internal dialogue talking as well and thinking,

oh maybe I agree with this guy, maybe I disagree, but the main idea of, I started a podcast so I

called a friend of mine and said, let's do this, let's try to do one in English just to talk a

little bit about Luxembourg politics, Luxembourg life, how is it, and complain as well because,

it's very good to complain about the day-to-day things that happen in Luxembourg that makes you

mad, but also to inform people about what's happening in the city and maybe try to make

some connections, talk to people. What's the title of your podcast? So it's Let's Talk About Let's,

you know, two dots on top of the Z. Yeah, we will have a link in the show notes for our

listeners but your podcast is a bit different because it's not.

Podcast in the sense of just audio it's a it's a video right we also i think if you could maybe

describe how you record this and yeah how it looks like and what is your your audience who do you

target that podcast to at the beginning the idea was to basically give a brief overview of the

the events happening in Luxembourg weekly.

And I called my friends who does this with me, which is Matt, he's also part of the podcast.

And we start thinking about ways to do it. So we start doing it weekly,

and that's what we do until now,

besides some special occasions where we have guests or we have like the elections

we did a special one as well.

We created an environment in my living room, of course. Like we are here right now sitting in my living room.

Yes. And we try to create a bit of a studio like idea where we put two cameras,

which one facing the one of the hosts. So we are two hosts and one main one where you have the whole picture.

We printed the logo. We did some, some basic stuff. I've seen some nice touches that with that logo there, like the light.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. We try to do it good.

Of course we're not professionals, but, um, at the end, I'm,

I'm very fond of the audio visual aspect of things. I'm a big serophile.

And we are going to talk about that in a few minutes as well.

So I went try to do something of, I say, we cannot do it professionally.

It's, it's not possible with our budgets. Uh, we don't have a studio,

but in my living room, we, um, we try to, to position things the way that is good

for the people looking and it's interesting for the people to watch you speak when you have a

camera to you and some try to do a good lighting and of course the topics and the content is more

important so we try to do a research of what happened in Luxembourg last week, the news.

Politics, what will happen, there's an agenda where we say look if you don't know this,

this is happening this weekend you can try to to go there if you want if you

like this kind of stuff and if you want to...

If you want to try something different there is that there is this if you want to know more about

politics so we research what the parties what they supported kind of where they lean to and

we try to make a sum of everything of course we don't go too deeply in the in the subjects

because we don't want to do one that lasts five hours each episode so we try to keep it short but

still it's one hour episode every time and we say oh no let's time that this time we'll do half hour

but we can't, it's too much to develop.

And when you have two people, the conversation goes and goes and goes.

And the topics that you talk about, is it only about, do you present information

or do you also present your own opinions?

We try first to present the information in the most neutral way we can.

And then we have some discussions about it, what we think, our personal views.

And we have kind of a weekly rant where we complain about things we don't like.

After all, I think this should be the motto of the country sometimes, people like to complain here.

But yeah, we try to keep it kind of short, kind of direct, kind of neutral,

and for you to see what it is.

And then if you want to dig a little bit deeper, do more research, we always leave the links

and all of the sources that we are taking this information from.

And we give our personal opinions, but this is a more, not a big part of the thing.

It's more informative for people to know, people to know what's happening in the country.

And we always say to our viewers and listeners.

Comment, uh, you can send an email, you can like, you can, uh, you know, all the basic stuff.

Subscribe, like, send us kisses. Yeah. Yeah.

But the idea is to engage with people, with people, otherwise, uh, there's no point, right?

We want to, to, we want to be useful for people coming here because we all been through the

same like at the beginning and for English speakers, which is a lot of people, sometimes

may be difficult or sometimes you don't have the information compiled.

So you have to go all around to find things. And I noticed a lot also with the agenda.

So if you're not looking in 10 places, you never know what's happening.

And I see a lot of complaints of people saying, there's nothing to do here.

But there is, there is a lot of things going on every week. And if you look, you will find and we try to bring this to people as well.

Yeah, I was having exactly the same issue some time ago when I was trying to find what's

happening, for example, this weekend or this week in the city, you know, concerts, theater,

philharmonic, stuff like that. And I found, I think it's a website that aggregates, or at least

that's it looked like that it aggregates all of the information that's happening. I think it's

called Miro, M-I-R-O, but I don't remember. I haven't visited in a long time. So you still use Does it still exist?

Yeah, it exists. Sometimes we use this one. We try to gather also, I think RTL has some good agenda, weekly agenda, so this helps.

We also receive from the commune the monthly program for the city.

This is for Luxembourg City, but there you have a lot of things that will happen the entire month.

Usually received at the beginning of the month.

I never subscribed to it, but it's there in my mailbox, which is quite good, I always read it.

And you have the whole programming and everything for the entire month.

And we start to, we're trying to engage with people. And it's nice because sometimes we receive comments,

people say, oh, this is useful, this is informative.

And we always say, if you wanna complain, and you wanna say we are wrong, that's okay as well. It's good to engage.

And constructive criticism is always welcome, of course, we're trying to make it better.

But for us, we have our full-time job, we are busy, but we try to do something nice.

You mentioned that this is a kind of special project for you because it's not only a podcast, it's also a videocast,

so there's a video part, and that you are very much interested in videography.

Can you tell us something a bit more about that? Of course, of course, yeah.

So, so coming back to the beginning, the root of the thing, since I'm a preteen or teenager.

I always enjoyed the cinema, going to the cinema, watching movies. And at a very early age,

I started, I started to collect, it was DVDs already at the time. I had some VHS, but it was

already DVDs. And I started growing this collection. I started watching every movie there is on the

face of the earth. And that was a good experience for me. And I value this until this day, piece

of entertainment where you can just focus, sit there and let yourself immerse on this,

the whole world that you are watching. It's like reading a book, but a 2.0 version, let's

Of course. And especially, so I contemplated going to film school,

but in Brazil it was very complicated.

You have a few film schools and to go abroad as well, it's difficult in Europe.

The ideal world would be to go to the US to do it, but then it's costly.

Yeah, but more expensive. Yeah. Yeah. It's very complicated.

So I would say, okay, let's keep this as a kind of a hobby, but a very strong one.

And let's go to the other side, because as I mentioned, a film has a lot of connections

with international relations as well.

A lot of films talk about politics, a lot of films talk about geopolitics, and a lot of films,

there is this intricate vision of the filmmaker and the writers,

and sometimes it's related to the period that they are living in.

So if you watch a movie, you see clearly, for some time periods you see clearly that they're trying to...

Construct this characters as they were in the world they were living at the time the person the filmmaker and the person writing and it's an interesting thing to see and you see changing from decade to decade when you watch a movie things are completely different if you watch a movie from twenty years ago if you watch the movie that movies that are coming out now.

The subjects are different, the characters are different, the writing is different,

everything is kind of in a changing state all the time.

So, I did not went to film school, but it was always a big hobby of mine,

going to the theater, I like going to the movies.

Also, it's something that during COVID we lost, But at least this gave me an excuse to better my equipment at home to watch some films.

And so this was a big part of my life, all through college, all through my adult life, just trying to immerse myself.

And these days as well it's something that.

Keeps me off the cell phone because we are the whole day just scrolling or looking at the phone

every five minutes and for me it's kind of a ritual so i will i say i will watch a movie now,

and i just i leave my phone off and that's a challenge to not look at it for one second and

just watch the movie pay attention really get the full experience of watching a movie and i see that,

today also things are getting faster and faster quicker and quicker everything needs to be quick.

And when you look at the video it needs to be five seconds if there's no retention,

the attention span of people is just missing.

And what's your favorite movie gender or movie type? Yeah. And from which period of time?

So I would say I'm not a guy that goes and see only like arthouse movies and

very underground things which some I like and I'm also not a big,

very big fan of blockbusters.

I'm kind of in between the two. But I like war movies, especially like Apocalypse Now,

it's a movie that I like a lot, not only because of the movie itself,

but by the history, it's based on a book which I already liked,

which it's not exactly about the Vietnam War, but it's about colonialism in Africa.

There's some things that connect, which I found it very interesting.

So I like horror movies, I like thrillers, especially neo-noir cop thrillers.

So, you know, the cop with a complicated past and trying to fight his demons.

I know it's been made a thousand times, but there are some very good ones.

And also some more artistic movies, maybe the directors that I like most,

like Scorsese, which is very action-packed,

but also some things like David Lynch, which is a very different structure of movies.

And when I saw for the first time, I was, okay, this is very nice,

because it's the complete opposite of other filmmakers.

But you don't know what is real when you watch the movie. It's not linear.

Things are happening. You don't know the timeline.

You don't know what is real and what is not.

You don't know exactly what's going on and it's up to interpretation.

And I like a lot that he'd never says what the movie is about.

It's up to you to watch it and then you make it what you want of it.

So this is something, and of course these kind of movies, I started to like it more after I was older, but during college or movies, cop movies,

this something which always interested me.

Yeah, when you mention a cop movie, there was one movie, well actually it's a bit of

a series, it's not a series but there were different…,

I don't know how to call it, episodes of the movies, you know, like part one, part two, part two and a half, Naked Gun.

Ah, yes.

It's not probably this kind of cop movie that you had in mind.

No. But for me, it's this unique form of art, Naked Gun, the humor in that movie as well.

And you also mentioned Scorsese, that is one of your favorite directors.

I think he produced and directed Taxi Driver. Actually, by coincidence, I saw it two weekends

ago, I think, two weeks ago for the first time. And it's a movie from the 70s. And usually I don't

watch this kind of old movies, but I was really, my wife kind of suggested that we watch it. She

she saw it like already a couple of times for sure.

But I watched it because she suggested and usually you don't go against what your wife says to you.

And I was really, I really enjoyed this movie. Like you said, there are a lot of different paths

that the movie is talking about and it's up to the viewer to really find.

All the information that he or she needs to or wants to find.

And it was also very interesting to see how the character developed.

There were those waves of development of the taxi driver from a regular guy to a crazy guy,

to a psychopath, again, to kind of regular guy. And then he rejected her at the end of the movie.

Someone that he was pursuing her, but we will not spoil for those who haven't seen it.

And also it reminds me a bit of the Joker movie.

Yes, it's on the same line. Kind of the same, the same line, which I also very much enjoy.

I don't know what's your opinion about the Joker movie?

It's good. I like it. It's darker. I'm not a big fan of superhero movies.

It's not exactly a superhero, but in the same universe.

And this is one of the ones that I like.

It's dark and steeper and violent. I don't like when things are toned down for the audience.

I like to watch it more crude and real thing.

So I like this, the Joker, the new one. We have a two now.

I'm always worried. We will have. You will have it. Yeah, yeah.

I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, yeah. But I'm always a bit afraid when you do sequel.

What's the place that you prefer to watch the movies? At home, at cinema, on your phone? Usually at home.

I like to go to the cinema, but it depends on the movie, because if it's too crowded, I don't feel like it's a good experience.

Usually people are talking, coming in late.

I don't feel like it's the perfect experience. But if it's a more adult movie, usually it's more quiet,

people are there paying attention to the movie.

So I like going to the theater, but if not possible, then at home,

which is most of them I watch at home. I think my watch list today is in a 4,000 probably movies watched.

And I always keep tabs on the movies I'm watching, always rating them or IMDB.

And when you when you listen at home, do you do you listen on the headphones?

Or through regular sets and the follow up question is which part of the movie is the most important and the most engaging for you is it that the video part of the visual or the audio or the colors.

So the colors are very important to me and there's a very good directors that do this got a danish director who directed drive.

And he's colorblind so he puts a lot of color in his movies and it's something I really like to watch the visual aspect.

One of the movies that I like the most it's called Paris, Texas from the 80s

and he has a very strong palette of colors.

It's something I also find very nice to be visually stimulated,

stimulating and also the audio.

So the audio part for me it's important as well.

At my home I don't have now right at the moment a good home theater and that's my next purchase for sure and I'm looking at it.

But I bought a big TV to watch. I didn't bought a projector because for me it's a rented house. I didn't want to make the whole, it would be complicated to do.

But I bought a big TV and I try to watch in the highest quality possible.

Sometimes the older movies are more difficult to come by but we have our ways to watch the movies. Something I like is the, sometimes they remaster like in 4k,

which is nice, but sometimes they only do it for the US and it's boring because the

blu-rays are region locked. So you don't have any, a lot of them. Then you have to go to

other means to do it, to watch.

We will not go into talking about it. So you mentioned that the colors and the visual play

important role to you. I think one of the modern directors, and by coincidence, I saw

So one of his movies just on Saturday is Wes Anderson.

He has a very specific way of doing it.

Framing everything and then showing the color palette. Yeah, the symmetry, the colors, it's very characteristic.

I really like this director very much.

I like the way, it's a very unique style.

And every time he launches a movie, I watch it. I try to watch it in the cinema,

because some directors is better to watch in a big, big, big screen,

because of those things that are very, there's a high quality of work there.

Craftsmanship in the color, in the audio, in the symmetry of things when you watch a movie of his, you know,

this director directed this movie because it's very particular and I enjoyed it very much.

I'm looking forward for his next movie. I think it's out this month or next month.

I appreciate Wes Anderson's production and movies, but every movie is visually to me

and I'm not such a big fan of cinema as you are. For me, it seems at some point boring.

It's like, oh, again, I know what to expect visually.

What's European? It's not, yeah, yeah. So that's the thing, you cannot rely too much on the visual aspect,

and leave the good writing behind.

So he has these highs and lows in movies.

Usually, suppose his character development, for example, the Royal Tanimals,

which is one of the most famous movies.

It's a bit old, 2003, I think, or something. That's not on air, exactly.

But today, these days, you say it's going to be 2005. Oh, no, I should not watch that.

But yeah, his character development used to be good. Some movies are better than the others.

Yeah, of course, it's not action-packed.

Sometimes the pacing can be a problem. So a good filmmaker needs to be in equilibrium between.

Also, you don't want just to put something beautiful and visual,

but lacking content or substance.

There's a, I would say, a bit controversial idea of mine about like the Avatar movies,

which is kind of an example of what I say, it's like beautiful effects, but the history,

the writings.

I heard a lot about Avatar.

I made a cautious decision not to watch it. It's visually okay to watch it in the cinema, but the history is just not there. The character

development, it does not exist. It's just a generic thing to show the new effects that

James Cameron, the director, developed. Yeah, but it's an equilibrium of things.

You have to have, and of course it's hard, you have to have a good visual, good history,

good writing and good sounds. It's a it's a kind of a dance, a perfect. It's everything.

Yeah, it's everything. That's why you have so many bad movies and a few good.

So what is your one favorite movie? If you had to name one and why?

I will be a better at the top 10, top 5. But I would say, as I mentioned before, Paris, Texas,

it's a movie that I enjoyed very much. And why? Why is it your favorite?

I think the development of the story, visually it's perfect for me, and the development of the characters and the climax at the end of the movie, it's a very touching movie, I would say, because it's the hero journey as in almost every movie, but it's very contemplative, but not in a pretentious way to be difficult.

I don't know, it shows you something.

It shows you visually a beautiful idea in the scenery. And it's all, again, it's connected to the time,

things that were happening, it's very connected to the idea of globalization,

but it's not exactly that, but things happening,

a consummism idea in the U.S., and then you're showing this man that is lost in the desert.

Basically he's lost in the desert. He moved, he disappeared for two years

and his journey to reconnect with his son,

which is a child, and then to find his lost wife as well.

So pretty interesting at the end and the end for me it's one of the best scenes in cinema.

Yeah, but I put this one in top one but there are others.

I understand. And what is the worst, the most terrible movie that you think you wasted your life, like couple of hours for watching?

What was like the top, the lowest movie that is on your list?

There's a lot, there's a lot, but I would say any, this might sound a bit harsh, but,

any romantic comedy for me, when I start watching it at one minute, I know everything that's going

to happen in the movie, all of the highs and lows, and it's just poorly made, the dialogue is just...

Was this series of movies with Van Diesel, like Need for Speed?

Fast and Furious. Fast and Furious. Oh, these are terrible as well. Yeah.

I think I saw a trailer for Fast and Furious like 22 a week ago. Yeah.

I think it's 10, not 10, 11 or something. And actually like the first one I watched as a kid and for me it was nice to watch as

a kid, see all the guys driving fast cars, whatever.

But then I watched today and I was like, okay, this is a waste of life.

It got to the point that all of the CGI is so fake, right? I mean, I think they, they start running out of budget and the CGI is not the best.

They do try to do it practical effects, just cut the fast, the cameras to try to make it

look like it's very, very fast things are happening.

Even if you put some CGI of that time, which was very expensive to do it.

It's just ridiculous i mean that the back then i think that the cgi was not so much of a cgi quite a lot of stance were like we have real these days it's a cgi.

Every made on the computer and i even like so indiana jones they will release indiana jones i think quite soon this year i saw the trailer.

And you know i was maybe not a big fun but you know indiana jones from my childhood memory sentiment etc i would like to watch it but i've seen a few scenes.

In the trailer that was looked so fake like visually it's not it will not be a pleasant movie for me but i might watch it.

Yeah it's nice to revisit to like a nostalgic feeling this is something important to important i say important for me as well sometimes you get the nostalgic feeling of things that passed on your life or happen

And you're looking at this and you are connecting to the moment where you first watched this and how your life was at that point and how is it now so it's something nice that brings you back to a time when you watched it and you're watching again.

If I understood well you're not only enjoying the visual aspect and the production and the different messages that are in the movie but you're also looking for a connection between a movie and your personal life.

Yeah, at some point, it depends on the movie, of course, but yeah, if you look at things and you see.

This situation, these things maybe connect to something that happened in your life,

it's nice as well to, if you have this connection, of course, many movies you don't,

and they're still good, but if you have a deeper one where you can really see, it's nice.

Do you have also the opposite happening that something happens in your life and you start

thinking about this or that movie?

Yeah, sometimes, I can't remember. Can you give an example?

No, I can't remember it in the top of my head, but for sure there's at some points I think,

oh, maybe the situation portrayed in that movie was actually realistic.

Maybe when you see it, you think, I would never think that or say that.

But when you are put in the position, you say, okay, maybe I would.

So, I think you mentioned also reading the books. So you're not only watching movies, but you also read the books.

Yeah, I used to have a big habit of reading when I was a teenager until I started college.

But then with all the technical books, I read a lot in college, but not the nicest kind of reading, more dense and more academic things.

And this kind of let me off a bit of the books, but it's something that I always enjoyed.

And if a movie has a book that is based on, I try to read it.

Sometimes it's not possible, but I try to read it. And 99% of the times it's not faithful exactly to the actual movie.

But one that I can outline that I really liked and I enjoyed reading while I was a teenager was The Godfather book, which is very good.

And of course, you have more in the book than in the movies,

but it's quite faithful adaptation. And of course, The Godfather is a perfect movie, in my opinion, of course.

So, another top movie on the list.

Yeah, yeah. And reading the book also expanded the universe, let's say, of the movie,

and made me have a good, a different view of the characters,

because they are characters, they are not different, they are the same characters,

but they have more a storyline in the books than in the movie.

So, this was pretty cool as well. And when you read books, do you like reading them on the printed version or you are more of a kindle?

No, I can't. I can only only physical.

Physical? I can't, yeah.

And when I start reading PDFs on a kindle, five minutes, I'm tired already.

Is it because your eyes get tired or it's this, you don't have this feeling of the paper?

Yeah, I don't have the feeling. That's very nice because you are a young person and you are still, well still, you're used to,

I want to use it as much. Yeah, I was born with a computer, using the computer daily, not the cell phone.

Yeah, a cell phone at 10 years old, I already had a cell phone at 8 years old.

So, yeah, but I still kept this, I think for my parents, they read a lot and we always had a big library at home.

So I always had this touch, this feeling of reading and touching the books.

I always bought a lot of books, but I ended that habit now also with the DVDs and Blu-rays.

Because when you move is a whole mess and when the technology evolves, for books no, but for DVDs, the technology evolves.

And then what you're going to do with this, all these DVDs, they don't look so good.

Yeah. DVD. I haven't seen a DVD in a long time. Yeah.

So when I, when I moved from Brazil, actually I donated my collect, my personal collection to the like public library sold so people could watch.

And I'm not the best, but the movies were very good. The selection was good.

It's probably somewhere in the museum, right? Yeah. Yeah. They, their show, they're just playing. Oh, look at this.

You might not remember. I still remember the three and a half inch floppy disks for a computer.

Yeah.

Yeah, I was very young, but I remember. Yeah, you remember that. Yeah. I wonder like, it's such a fond memory because they were like little games.

Yeah. And you have more than one, right?

Yeah. You have to, sometimes you have like four or even six you have to load. And the whole game

was on, you know, three discs. I don't remember what it was like three megabytes per disc, I think.

Yeah. I think those are the best ones, the latest ones.

For the oldest one it was. The oldest was like, I don't remember how big it was, but it was, uh, you could, it was flexible.

You could, you could flex it. I remember, I remember those, uh, as well. You like reading

books. You obviously like to, you enjoy watching the movies and you, you analyze them. So how do

you watch a movie? Like, do you sit down and you just watch it in one go without any breaks?

Yeah. That's, uh, that's, uh, sorry, we can't finish, but that's something that I few dates.

One of the most important things, don't stop a movie in the middle.

Either you watch it the whole thing or don't watch it.

And don't you want to sometimes pause the movie and just reflect on the last few scenes and analyze it?

Or do you do that afterwards? After, yeah. I do the whole experience, the whole movie, then I stop.

And then if it's something more deep and dense, then I can watch it again, then stop at a few scenes just to think about it.

But the first time always sit down, no cell phone, watch the whole movie, then stop,

think about what you saw and then maybe if it's a good one, it will stick in your head for two days.

And do you rewatch it almost immediately or after some time or you decide, oh, I need to,

it's an interesting movie, I need to rewatch it and then you always wait, let's say a week or two?

Yeah, I wait a bit. Yeah, usually for the ones that are stuck in my head, maybe one, two weeks later, I'll watch again.

There are not very much, I don't watch again many movies, just some that are very good.

Otherwise, some that I found okay, good, but I will not watch it again, probably that's 85% of them.

And I try to, these days, since my time is shorter, I try to select well what I'm watching.

And sometimes I can get a bit upset because I say okay I put two hours of my time into this,

I'm very concentrated and at the end it does not deliver anything.

Yeah but that's it, I like the experience of watching a movie and I think it's a good thing

because the intensity of the light of the TV is softer on you than on the cell phone.

Cell phone is I would say a bit strong so if you watch a movie on your cell phone with a lot of

light before going to bed, maybe you will not sleep that well.

So it's good to watch a movie with the lights off. It's a bit relaxing for me, at least I would say before going to bed.

Besides, even if you have a big cell phone, it's still a small screen, right?

You cannot really enjoy the whole spectrum of... No, visually, no.

It's impossible. And I fear, no, yeah, maybe I fear that things are getting more and more built to the cell

So I know for a fact that Netflix has guidelines for its movies.

So the directors who do the Netflix movies, they need to follow certain specificities,

To make it good to watch on a cell phone.

Making it good to watch on a cell phone kinda good it takes away the quality of watching the way you supposed to.

What the big screen and the scenes position in a certain manner they also ask you to use specific cameras that look good on cell phones and tablets so the business is way more focused now.

And for Amazon Prime probably is the same thing, they are more focused now on creating content for cellphones and less and less for the big, huge screen.

So as a person who obviously knows more than an average person about movies and really enjoys the art of watching, have you considered, besides going to the studies, have you considered or tried to make a movie on your own?

I tried to write a few, but I could never finish an entire script.

But it was something in the future. Maybe I will go in the near future to film school just to go,

and maybe do some experiments.

At some point, it's something I would like to do. Maybe in 5, 10 years.

But do you need to go to the school to make a movie? No, no, no.

But to really understand how it is and also sometimes to use the structure of the film school.

Because, of course, these days you have an iPhone, you can shoot an entire movie with an iPhone.

A lot of people have done it.

But it's challenging and time consuming. Sometimes if you have already the professional equipment,

and you have the editing rooms, this is important as well.

They have, usually in the university, they have good ones. But not necessarily, you don't need to go to school to shoot a movie.

I think you have a pretty good chance if you just do it like that because you will not be constrained by the let's say the theory that would be taught in a in a school your mind is free you can do whatever you want.

Right and then all the cameras that they sell right now you can you can shoot in 4k.

From your video cast production have the microphones you know how to operate them so the audio audio is covered.

And then just learn, you know, Da Vinci code and cultural grading and yeah, that's, yeah,

those things. Yeah, it's possible.

Good luck. I really let, let me know if you, if you produce it, I would love to watch it.

I mean, even a short movie, like two or three minutes can be really engaging.

Yeah.

You gave me good ideas today, two good ones. I will, I will send you the invoice later for consulting.

So we covered films.

We covered books, very interesting, but there is also something that you're interested in

and it's on a completely different spectrum, which is sports and football.

Just before we started recording, you mentioned that you just flew with your private jet from

Milan where you played a football game.

Can you tell us a bit more about that game and your interest in football?

Yes, well, from Brazil it's already halfway there, so we love football.

But since I was a child, my grandfather used to take me to the stadium since maybe 9, 10

years old, and I started getting a taste of it and I liked the atmosphere, and it was

a good thing to spend time with him as well.

And this kind of become a habit, so I watched every...

Game of my team, sometimes here in Europe at 3am I just wake up to watch it and go to sleep again to work the next day at 8am.

But it's something that always been part of my life, this one even before films.

I always saw the people around me, my father, my grandfather, everyone watching football and being so into it and supporting the team,

and going to the stadium and discussing and complaining and the excitement when you win.

And of course I started playing since an early age, not at professional level of course,

but I played all through school, through high school, then in college I slowed down a lot, I did not play anymore,

got out of shape, but now I try to pick up back again when I move to Luxembourg.

And coming back to that old topic, Football is a good way to make connection with people.

Because for me it took one hour to find a group to play football.

And someone put me in a WhatsApp group and we were already scheduling games for next week

and I met a lot of people doing that.

So I supported my local team always, even from here. Every time that I go back to Brazil on vacation I try to go to the games.

I buy a shirt, I'm a lifetime associate of the club, membership.

What's the name of the club? Grêmio.

And well, I'm very fond of football.

And playing also was good for me, not only here in Luxembourg, but in school it's nice as well.

We have a good, it creates a good sense of not only competition,

sportsmanship, but also connection with other people. It's not an individual sport, you know, you need to trust the other person.

You need to work together.

So it's something that if you don't all work together, if you don't get along, if you don't.

Work as a team nothing will happen so this i think it quite help me in in life it's kind of like making a movie as well right yeah to make all the process audio guy sound guy the

head grip or the main grip and everyone on the set yeah it's everything needs to be in sync for things to work.

And here in Luxembourg, I try to keep up also with the local football in the sense of the national team.

I'm always going to the national team games. Luxembourgish? Yeah, Luxembourgish, yeah.

Not so good, but we're there to support. Good, good. I mean, all the support is needed and very much appreciated.

I think they played a game with Malta?

Yeah, and they managed to lose to Malta, which was... I thought they won. Was it 0-1?

I think it was 0-1, yeah. I think it was 0-1, yeah.

Okay, I thought it was 1-0, maybe I, because I'm, I was listening, I'm learning Luxembourgish,

so all the news that when I drive car, I always put the Luxembourgish news on, so probably

I still have to improve, because I thought actually Luxembourg won.

But it was a, it was a friendly match, so it did not mean much, but the next week I

believe we have the Euro qualifiers, and this is a very important match, so it's possible

for the Luxembourgish national team to go to the Euro, which would be a very big thing.

I think it never went. And the group is Portugal, which will win, will be the first place. But the

second place, it's completely open. You have Liechtenstein, you have Luxembourg, and you have... Liechtenstein? Yeah.

Yeah. Liechtenstein plays. Yeah. They have... The next game is against...

It's a smaller country. Even smaller than Luxembourg, exactly.

I don't know how they found players.

And bought them. Yeah, exactly. Why Luxembourg doesn't though?

It's such a, you know, rich country. Yeah, but Luxembourgish players are mostly from Portuguese origin,

I would say, from the national team, probably 60% of them.

Then even, you know, then why? I mean, Portuguese players are good players.

But the team is improving, it's getting better.

But none of them, I think, play here in Luxembourg. They play in other clubs, but they play for the national team of Luxembourg.

I know nothing about football, to be honest.

You mentioned that you also found some friends. Yeah, sometimes we play on a weekly basis.

Now I'm playing with my company, which is promoting a football tournament, internal.

So each branch sent their team there to Italy to play.

And I joined the team and we went. We did not win, but it was a good run.

Which place did you... 4th or 5th, yeah. Out of?

12 maybe. That's not bad, congratulations. It was okay, we won two, we draw one, and we lose only one.

Okay, well congratulations. And as long as you had fun. Yeah, that's the important part, yeah.

And we tied against the champion, which was Poland.

So it was cool, the Poland branch, the guys were very young, very fit,

and we were a bit already more senior team. And who won, the Polish team?

Yeah, the Polish team. Yay.

Well, I'm Polish. Yeah, yeah, no, I know, that's why I mentioned it.

I think we covered so many nice and interesting topics from your video cast.

Let's talk about, let's talk about, let's, about your passion for movies.

We also talked and you shared with us about reading books and your passion for football.

Phil, thank you so much for joining the show and coming on the show and for sharing your passions.

That's the whole idea for the podcast, to have people share their passions, what they're

doing in Luxembourg, what they find interesting in life.

We will definitely include the link to your video cast in the show notes and also to some

other things like the movies that you recommended and also maybe the link if it exists to your

football club back in Brazil.

Thank you so much. Thank you.