Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles' 1995 feature Foreign Land (which he co-directed with Daniela Thomas) won Brazil's Silver Daisy Award for Best Film of the Year, among other honors. Walter Salles’ next film, Central Station, was selected for the Sundance-NHK Cinema 100 Award for its screenplay (based on his original story), and world-premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1998.

Central Station went on to win the awards for Best Film and Best Actress (Fernanda Montenegro) at the Berlin International Film Festival that same year, as well as the Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards for Best Foreign-Language Film. Walter Salles' 2001 feature Behind the Sun, which he directed and co-wrote, was nominated for BAFTA and Golden Globe Awards for Best Foreign-Language Film; and won Brazil's Silver Daisy Award for Best Film of the Year. Walter Salles biography shows that in addition to his work as director and screenwriter, his career in feature films also encompasses acting as producer or co-producer of young Brazilian filmmakers' features. Walter Salles co-produced the multiple Academy Award nominee City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles and co-directed by Katía Lund; and produced Karim Ainouz's acclaimed Madame Satã. Walter Salles biography says that he is currently producing Cidade Baixa, the first film by his former Assistant Director Sergio Machado; and Andrucha Wattington's The House of Sand.

Director Walter Salles notes that after making The Motorcycle Diaries, "If there's one thing I can tell you about this experience that we shared - 'we' being the group of people who went on the road together for two years to do this project - it's that, like Ernesto and Alberto, we were very different when we got to the end of our journey in comparison to where we were when we started it." Walter Salles biography currently concludes that his next film as director is the American-made feature Dark Water, a thriller starring Jennifer Connelly.