Stephen Daldry’s latest film may be the anti-picture postcard vision of Rio de Janeiro, exposing the dark underbelly of police violence and crushing poverty, but the Oscar-nominated British director still managed to maintain his rosy vision of the city.

Daldry had never visited Brazil before embarking on the five-year production for “Trash,” the story of three slum-dwelling teens who stumble upon a deadly political corruption scheme while working as trash pickers.

He went on to spend two years living on-and-off in Rio and is still under the city’s spell.

“I loved it. I’d be happy to spend the rest of my life in Brazil, to be honest,” Daldry told The Associated Press ahead of the film’s world premiere Tuesday at the Rio Film Festival. “The people are so gorgeous and so open. It’s an amazing place to be. I was very privileged to spend time here.”

Although he lived in a rented house in the tony Gavea neighborhood, the director spent around four months shooting “Trash” in some of Rio’s roughest slums, many of which long were dominated by heavily armed drug dealers. While the crew was caught up once in the crossfire of warring militias, Daldry said the production otherwise went smoothly.

“People worry about the violence here and actually we had a few little problems. But on a day-to-day basic level, I would find areas of London much more scary,” he said, “and we went everywhere everyone told us not to go.” (AP)