I’m Still Here Is Worthy of Oscar Hype
Walter Salles’s I’m Still Here is the true story of a left-wing political family in Brazil caught up in the dark days of the military dictatorship. It’s a riveting story with incredible character and period detail that deserves an Oscar this Sunday.
The Paiva family and their friends pose for a photo in I’m Still Here. (Sony Pictures Classics / YouTube)
The new film by Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries, Central Station), Brazil’s most celebrated living director, I’m Still Here has finally arrived at a movie theater near me. The reason it’s playing in wide release is no doubt because it’s an Academy Award nominee, up for Best Picture, Best International Film, and Best Actress for Fernanda Torres. There’s a strong argument to be made that it ought to win them all.
A political drama based on the 2015 memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, I’m Still Here is about a family fractured by the Brazilian military dictatorship that lasted from 1964 to 1985. There was an attempt by right-wing groups in Brazil to boycott the film. But it’s turned out to be the highest-grossing film in that country since the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the early 1970s, when the movie is initially set, former congressman Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello) has returned home from political exile after the CIA-backed military overthrow of João Goulart’s left-wing government. We find Rubens working as a civil engineer and living with his wife Eunice (Fernanda Torres) and their five lively children in Rio de Janeiro.
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