Illusions of grandeur

"I think everybody at some point in their life has thought about what would have happened if they had turned right instead of going left in the past. And this is what the movie is about," Paulo says.

While the limited time allotted for the interview didn't allow media to delve deeper into his past, there is perhaps one thing above all that Paulo does not regret about his life - his passion for suspense tales.

When he was a teenager, his grandmother - a huge fan of detective novels and suspense thrillers - used to "force" him to watch Alfred Hitchcock films and read Agatha Christie books.

"She wanted to discuss the stories with somebody. So that's how I fell in love with mysteries.

"So, when I started to make films, I thought I would like the audience to feel like I felt when I was a kid. By then I was so involved with what was happening on the screen that I didn't want to blink.

"I think that's why I like suspense films, because I don't want people to blink while they're watching the movie," he says.