City of God is a 2002 Brazilian crime drama film directed by Fernando Meirelles and co-directed by Kátia Lund. The story was adapted by Bráulio Mantovani from the 1997 novel of the same name written by Paulo Lins. However, the movie characters are not fictitious and the plot is based upon real events. It follows the growth of organized crime in the Cidade de Deus suburb of Rio de Janeiro between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1980s. The end of the film shows the war between the drug dealer Li'l Zé and the criminal Knockout Ned. City of God was ranked third in Film4's "50 Films to See Before You Die", and No.6 on The Guardian's "The 25 Best Action Movies Ever".
The movie's tagline is: "If you run, the beast catches you; if you stay, the beast eats you", (aPortuguese proverb similar to the English "Damned if you do, damned if you don't"). It describes the hopelessness of being involved in criminal activity in Rio's favelas. Most of the cast were from real-life favelas, including the real-life City of God itself. About a hundred children were hand-picked and placed into an "actors' workshop" for several months. Their training focused on simulating authentic street-war scenes, such as a hold-up, a scuffle, a shoot-out, etc. After filming, it was too dangerous for the young actors to return to their old lives in the favelas and so help groups were set up for them to build lives elsewhere.