For a film its creator thought was, “this little low-budget film from Brazil,” the 2002 “City of God” has had an enormous, enduring impact.

Nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Director for its producer-director Fernando Meirelles, “COG” was set in a Rio favela, inspired by real events and now ranks among world cinema’s greatest films.

“City of God: The Fight Rages On,” airing on HBO at 8 p.m. Sunday (in Portuguese with English subtitles), is set in the same neighborhood, 20 years after the original.

Why has “City of God” stayed so alive?

“I have no idea, to be honest,” Meirelles, 68, said, speaking in English on a Zoom interview. “I mean, I made this film because I was very involved with the story and these unknown actors.

“I was an unknown director making my first film. Of course, I wasn’t expecting the reaction it had. It really came out from nowhere!

“It came to last because the story is still meaningful — and the film still lists among the Top 20 films of all time on IMDb. I’m very surprised. I never expected that. This was just a Brazilian low-budget film.”

Many characters are back in the series, played by the same actors including Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues) the photographer who documents the many dead – and whose vivid images make him famous, successful and ambivalent.

Among the most striking is vicious, deadly and unforgettable  Jerusa (Andréia Horta) aptly nicknamed “Crazy,” a frighteningly capable killer who masterminds her boyfriend’s drug-trafficking operation.

“All the characters in the series are based on people that we read stories about. Or we met them. Or they came from the film. So Crazy is, obviously, fictitious,” Meirelles said. “She’s based on a lawyer married to a drug dealer.

“She changed sides, decided to support him with the intention of becoming the boss of the drug dealing within the community. We have a lot of license for this.

“The whole series, everything that happens, the events, the dynamics,” he emphasized, “are inspired by people’s reports of things, newspapers articles and facts.”

When the film opened, its violence was controversial, shocking. Has our perception of violence changed these last 20 years?

“Unfortunately, now we are more used to violence — and perhaps we want to see even more violence.  ‘City of God’ tells a violent situation. But if you look, it doesn’t have a tenth of the graphic violence that we see in any television film today.

“In ‘City of God’ I didn’t even put three milligrams of blood in anybody. You saw people down, but you don’t have a bullet exploding in someone’s face. You don’t have that excess of violence.

“It’s much less graphic than what we’re used to seeing.”

“City of God: The Fight Rages On” airs on HBO on Sunday