The acclaimed drama, I’M STILL HERE, directed by Award-winning director Walter Salles and starring Golden Globe winner & Oscar nominated actress Fernanda Torres, is now Irish cinemas.
I’M STILL HERE is nominated for Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards becoming the first Brazilian film to ever be in this position. It is also nominated for Best International Film and won the Golden Globe for Best Actress (Drama) for Torres as well as being nominated for non-English Language Film. It also won Best Screenplay at the Venice Film Festival and was nominated for the Critics Choice Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Set in early 1970s Rio de Janeiro when Brazil faces the tightening grip of a military dictatorship I’M STILL HERE introduces us to the Paivas: a father, Rubens (Selton Mello), a mother, Eunice (Fernanda Torres), and their five children. They live by the beach, in a rented house with doors constantly open to friends. The affection and humour they share among themselves are their own subtle forms of resistance to the oppression that hangs over the country. One day, they suffer a violent and arbitrary act that will forever change their lives. In the aftermath, Eunice is forced to reinvent herself and carve out a new future for herself and her children. The moving story of this family, based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva's bestselling memoir, helped to reconstruct an important part of Brazil’s hidden history.
The film has seen remarkable box office success in France, the United States and its native Brazil where it was the biggest Brazilian film of 2024 with over 3 million admissions and grossing over $13,000,000 (USD) to date, making it Walter Salles’ biggest movie ever in Brazil and captivating audiences across the country.
Directed by Walter Salles and starring Fernanda Torres, I spoke with the pair about the film and the upcoming awards possibilities.
Director Walter Salles said, “When I first read I’m Still Here by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, I was deeply moved. For the first time, the story of the desaparecidos, the people snatched from their lives by the Brazilian dictatorship, was being told from the perspective of those left behind. In the experience of one woman – Eunice Paiva, a mother of five – there was both the story of how to live through loss and a mirror of the wound left on a nation. It was also personal: I knew this family and was friends with the Paiva children. Their house remains etched in my memory. During the seven years we spent creating “I’m Still Here,” life in Brazil veered dangerously close to that past – which made it all the more urgent to tell this story.”
I’M STILL HERE is a gripping political biographical drama essentially about a family coping under the most difficult circumstances, with the mother brilliantly played by Fernanda Torres. It deserves all the Academy Awards it's nominated for and more ★★★★★
