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Recently in The New York Times, A.O. Scott dubbed a recent spate of social realist North American cinema “neo-neo-realism,” harkening back to the days of Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio de Sica. At the forefront of this wave - along with Wendy and Lucy director Kelly Reichardt and So Yong Kim, of the recent Treeless Mountain - is Ramin Bahrani. Born and raised in Winston-Salem, N.C. and of Iranian descent, the filmmaker has so far focused on working class jobs. His 2005 debut Man Push Cart followed a push cart vendor. 2007’s Chop Chop trailed a 12 year old working odd jobs in Queen’s Iron Triangle. Goodbye Solo, which finds Bahrani both leaving New York City for his hometown and working with professional actors (or at least two of them), has made him a fixture of coverage, partly given our fun economic apocalypse, partly because he deserves it. Bahrani sat down with PW while in town for the Philadelphia Film Festival/CineFest, where Goodbye Solo played.

This is the first of your films shot in your hometown of Winston-Salem, N.C. Was this a more personal film for you?

I don’t know if it was more personal, but I always knew I would go back there to make a film. I’m friends with Angus MacLachlan [screenwriter of Junebug], who’s a Winston-Salem native, too. After he saw the film he said, ‘Ramin, you can show Junebug and Goodbye Solo and nobody would believe it’s the same town, and they’re completely accurate to this town.’ I found that a really interesting comment.

The plot is reminiscent of Abbas Kiarostami’s A Taste of Cherry. Was that a major influence on Goodbye Solo?

Not specifically. The main cinematic reference for me was The Flowers of St. Francis by Rossellini. He made that at the end of World War II, thinking that spirit of France was what the world needed. And this film was developed and written and rewritten during the Iraq crisis. I remember saying to my cameraman back in 2006 that we needed someone like Solo, that kind of spirit of generosity and love of strangers.

You’ve previously worked exclusively with nonprofessional actors. Why switch to pros, even though they’re not terribly well-known pros?

For one thing the real driver didn’t want to be in the film. That led to us looking for Solo, which wound up being a blessing because we wound up rewriting the script and finding Souleymane [Sy Savane]. I think a nonprofessional actor could have made the film, but I’m not convinced yet. There was something in the part that required somebody who had some training.

Red [West] is just amazing. We found him in a casting call in the southeast. I saw his casting tape and after five seconds I thought, ‘This is the guy who’s been in my mind for years now.’ And you know the story of Red West. Elvis’s best friend, his bodyguard, Memphis Mafia, veteran character actor but never the lead. I tend to do a lot of takes. Twenty, thirty takes. With Red I did eight, and the last three were just because I was shocked I had it in four. I just did four more because I couldn’t believe it. It felt weird.

Is Red West like William at all?

He’s not. He’s a practical joker. He’s very friendly, very warm. He used to apologize to Souleymane. I don’t find his character very mean. I think he’s deliberately being rough with Solo to keep him at arm’s length. In his mind he knows it will be more painful on that mountain top to leave if he’s made a connection with Solo and his daughter. He doesn’t talk to his grandson because talking to him would be selfish. What’s he going to say? ‘Hey, I’m your grandfather. I’m going to make myself known to you and then two weeks later I’m going to kill myself.’

How was it different working with professional actors?

The one difference was I showed them the script, which is not something I do. In Chop Shop the actors didn’t see the script. In Solo none of the other nonprofessional actors saw the script. To this day they don’t know what it’s about. The little girl doesn’t know what has happened on that mountain top.

Your scripts come off as being blue prints, that you write with the camera. Is that true?

No. They’re incredibly detailed. They’re written and rewritten and rewritten. [Goodbye Solo] was written from 2005 through 2007. Very few things that are in the film aren’t in the script. The only thing that was improvised was when they talk about music. And that was done ten more time to hone it down into a scene. All improvisations happened in rehearsals and everything is incredibly scripted.

How do you find your subjects?

With Goodbye Solo, I went to a pick-up soccer game with my brother, and we saw a lot of taxis parked. And then we saw a lot of Africans on the field. I realized the Africans drove those taxis. One of those guys was an incredibly charming, friendly guy who knew my brother, so he started talking to me, too. I learned he didn’t own his car, and little by little a story started to emerge. The taxi business is different in the South. In a town like New York you have to have money to take a taxi. In Winston-Salem it’s people who don’t have money who take taxis - who can’t afford a car, can’t afford insurance.

What do you think of other portrayals of poverty, like, say, Slumdog Millionaire?

I do not like Slumdog Millionaire. I think it’s an exploitation and it’s not something to have a song and dance about. Someone jumping into human feces is not a joke, it’s a reality. For lessons on how not to romanticize poverty, because it should not be romanticized, you take a look at the greats like Steinbeck and Faulkner. In Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck’s on the side of the working class and he despises the people who abuse them. But he recognizes they also abuse themselves. They can cheat each other, they can be racist. He doesn’t turn his eye to that. That’s important.