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I’m Still Here film image; family of four posing on the beach

I'm Still Here

Ainda Estou Aqui

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At a time when power brokers uncomfortably close to home are musing aloud about the merits of authoritarianism, filmmaker Walter Salles is here to remind us of Brazil’s experience of the military dictatorship in the early 1970s. Initially, life seems relatively normal in the happy upper middle class household of former congressman Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello). His main concern is that his teenage daughters steer clear of politics. So, wife Eunice (Fernanda Torres) is bewildered when her husband is picked up by armed men one morning. It is the beginning of a long, dark nightmare for her and the family.

Salles (Central Station; Motorcycle Diaries; On the Road) hasn’t made a film for more than a decade, and it’s clear that the 2015 memoir by Paiva’s son, Marcelo, resonated with him deeply. He was 15 in 1971, when the bulk of the film is set, and the period detail feels completely lived in and authentic. Likewise the consuming energies of a loving family. But the second half of the movie belongs to Fernanda Torres, magnificent as the matriarch who must shoulder the weight of her husband’s disappearance.

Director

Walter Salles

Cast

Fernanda Torres, Selton Mello, Fernanda Montenegro

Credits
Country of Origin

Brazil/France

Year

2024

Language

In Portuguese with English subtitles

Awards

Best Screenplay: Venezia 81, Venice 2024

19+
136 min
VideoFilmes, RT Features, Mact Productions, Conspiração

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Credits

Executive Producer

Guilherme Terra, Thierry de Clermont-Tonnerre, Lourenço Sant’anna, Renata Brandão, Juliana Capelini, David Taghioff, Masha Magonova

Producer

Rodrigo Teixeira, Maria Carlota Bruno, Martine De Clermont-Tonnerre

Screenwriter

Murilo Hauser, Heitor Lorega

Cinematography

Adrian Teijido

Editor

Alfonso Goncalves

Production Design

Carlos Conti

Original Music

Warren Ellis

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