“I’m Still Here” — which on Sunday gained Brazil’s first Oscar, in the perfect worldwide movie class — traces a household’s painful historical past throughout the nation’s army dictatorship, forcing a reckoning with the previous.
The film from Walter Salles — primarily based on a real story — additionally earned Fernanda Torres a greatest actress nomination for her function as Eunice Paiva, the resilient spouse of a leftist politician who disappeared throughout the 1964-1985 dictatorship.
“This goes to a woman who, after a loss suffered during an authoritarian regime, decided not to bend and to resist. So this prize goes to her. Her name is Eunice Paiva,” Salles advised the viewers in accepting the award.
The international success of “I’m Still Here” — nominated for 3 Oscars and lots of different worldwide awards — sparked a nationwide fervor normally reserved for Carnaval or the soccer World Cup.
The movie, which drew greater than 4 million viewers into Brazilian cinemas, gained greatest screenplay on the Venice Film Festival, and Torres triumphed over main Hollywood stars to win a Golden Globe for greatest actress in a drama.
“I’m Still Here” is predicated on the true story of Rubens Paiva, a former lawmaker kidnapped by brokers of the army regime in Rio de Janeiro in 1971.
Eunice, who finds herself alone with 5 youngsters and the thriller of what occurred to her husband, decides to reinvent herself and spends a long time preventing to know his destiny.
As a results of her efforts, the Brazilian authorities issued a loss of life certificates for Rubens in 1996.
As the movie grew in reputation, the Supreme Court determined to reopen the case of his disappearance.
Salles can also be identified for Che Guevara biopic “The Motorcycle Diaries” and “Central Station,” which was nominated for 2 Oscars.
In a wierd coincidence, a kind of two nominations was for greatest actress for Torres’ mom Fernanda Montenegro — the one different Brazilian to get a nod within the class.
Montenegro, 95, seems on the finish of “I’m Still Here” as an older Eunice Paiva.
The film has fueled debate about an amnesty regulation adopted in 1979, which prevented anybody from being punished for greater than 400 deaths and disappearances throughout the dictatorship.
“When we started the project in 2016, we thought it was an opportunity to look back and understand where we come from,” Salles stated in a latest interview with AFP. “But given the rise of the far right in Brazil, starting in 2017, we realized that this film would also help us understand the present.”
His feedback referred to the divisive and turbulent rule of former president Jair Bolsonaro, an ex-army captain who brazenly admires the army regime.
In February, Bolsonaro was charged with trying a coup bid after dropping 2022 elections to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
“This film calls for important reflection, it touches the hearts of people from all sides. All the people who watch this film say to themselves: ‘This is not good, this family should not be persecuted’,” Torres advised AFP.
The title of the film even impressed a speech by Lula in January as he marked two years since Bolsonaro supporters ransacked authorities buildings within the capital, demanding the army intervene to cease the leftist from taking energy.
“If we are still here, it is because democracy has won,” Lula stated.
Critics have remained comparatively quiet, though some Bolsonaro supporters known as on social media for a boycott of the film.
Meanwhile, the nationwide enthusiasm round “I’m Still Here” has led followers to go to the home the place the film was filmed in Rio de Janeiro and the grave of Eunice Paiva in Sao Paulo, the place she was laid to relaxation in 2018.
© 2025 AFP