I'm Still Here Trailer #1 (2025)


We watched the Brazilian movie I’m Still Here which is excellent and based in 1970 Brazil at the height of the dictatorship period. Halmuni saw this coming and emigrated. Interesting and disconcerting to watch given the current situation in the U.S. Would recommend
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I'm Still Here (2024 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I'm Still Here
Brazilian theatrical release poster
PortugueseAinda Estou Aqui
Directed byWalter Salles
Screenplay by
  • Murilo Hauser
  • Heitor Lorega
Based onI'm Still Here
by Marcelo Rubens Paiva
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyAdrian Teijido
Edited byAffonso Gonçalves
Music byWarren Ellis
Production
companies
Distributed by
Release dates
  • 1 September 2024 (Venice)
  • 7 November 2024 (Brazil)
  • 15 January 2025 (France)
Running time
138 minutes[1]
Countries
  • Brazil
  • France
LanguagePortuguese
Box officeUS$34 million[2]

I'm Still Here (Portuguese: Ainda Estou Aqui ; Brazilian Portuguese: [aˈĩdɐ isˈtow aˈki]) is a 2024 political biographical drama film directed by Walter Salles from a screenplay by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega, based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva's 2015 memoir of the same name. It stars Fernanda Torres and Fernanda Montenegro as Eunice Paiva, a mother and activist coping with the forced disappearance of her husband, the dissident politician Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), during the military dictatorship in Brazil.[3] Soon after its release in Brazilian theaters on 7 November 2024 by Sony Pictures Releasing International, the film was the target of an unsuccessful boycott by the Brazilian far-right, which denies that the military regime was a dictatorship.[4][5][6] Grossing $34 million it became the highest-grossing Brazilian film since the COVID-19 pandemic.[2][7]

The film had its world premiere on 1 September 2024 at the 81st Venice International Film Festival[8] where it received critical acclaim with unanimous praise towards Torres' performance,[9] winning the Best Screenplay award.[10] It was named one of the Top 5 International Films of 2024 by the National Board of Review.[11] At the 82nd Golden Globe Awards, Torres won the Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama category while the film was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, a category in which it was also nominated at the Critics' Choice Movie Awards and the BAFTA. At the 97th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Actress (Torres), Best Picture[12][13][14] and won Best International Feature Film, becoming the first-ever Brazilian produced film to win an Academy Award.[15]

Plot

[edit]

In December 1970, Rubens Paiva lives in an idyllic house near Leblon beach with his wife Eunice and their five children. Returning to his civil career, following the revocation of his tenure at the outset of the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état, Paiva continues to support political expatriates without discussing his activities with his family.

Following the kidnapping of the Swiss ambassador to Brazil by revolutionary movements, the country faces a looming political instability. Their friends, Fernando [pt] and Dalva Gasparian, decide to seek refuge in London, taking the Paivas' eldest daughter, Vera, with them. Vera had previously witnessed military violence while returning from the cinema with her friends. A military raid takes place in Paiva's house, resulting in his arrest and disappearance in January 1971. Eunice's public inquiries on Rubens' whereabouts result in her arrest and torture for 12 days. Eliana, their teenage daughter, is also imprisoned but is released after 24 hours. Eunice is questioned about whether her husband is involved with pro-democracy movements, which she denies.

False newspaper reports claim that Rubens fled the country to exile, but Eunice and her friends suspect otherwise. With the help of lawyer Lino Machado, she files a habeas corpus petition. She also learns from family friend Bocaiuva Cunha that Rubens had been secretly helping political exiles. A former teacher, Martha, confirms she was imprisoned with Rubens but is afraid to speak out publicly. She later writes a letter detailing her arrest. Félix, a journalist and family friend, informs Eunice that Rubens was killed, but the military authorities refuses to confirm it officially. Left to care for her children alone, Eunice sells their home and moves to São Paulo, anticipating a new start close to her maternal family.

25 years later, in 1996, while receiving from the Brazilian state—now once again a democracy—Rubens Paiva's official death certificate, surrounded by journalists, Eunice calls for reparations for victims' families and accountability for the crimes of the military dictatorship. In 2014, during a family gathering surrounded by her children and grandchildren, the now 85-year-old Eunice in a wheelchair lives with advanced Alzheimer's disease. When a news report about the National Truth Commission addresses Rubens' case, a distressed Eunice appears to remember her past.

Closing title cards reveal that Paiva was murdered at the DOI-CODI headquarters between 21 and 22 January 1971. Five people were identified as responsible, yet they were never prosecuted. Eunice graduated from law school at age 48. She became one of few experts on Indigenous Rights in Brazil, serving as a counselor for the Federal Government, the World Bank, and the United Nations. She died in 2018 at the age of 89.

Cast

[edit]

Production

[edit]

The screenplay was written by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega, and adapted from the memoir Ainda Estou Aqui by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, Eunice's son. Hauser also co-wrote the screenplay for Karim Aïnouz's The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão (2019) based on the novel of the same name by Martha Batalha.

Principal photography began in June 2023 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.[17] The film was produced by RT Features and VideoFilmes in co-production with Globoplay, Mact Productions, Conspiração Filmes and Arte France Cinéma.

Release

[edit]
Director Walter Salles and lead actress Fernanda Torres promoting I'm Still Here at the 2024 BFI London Film Festival

In May 2024, Sony Pictures Classics acquired distribution rights to I'm Still Here in North America, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Turkey, Portugal, Australia, and New Zealand at the Marché du Film.[3]

The film had its world premiere at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on 1 September 2024, receiving a standing ovation of over 10 minutes;[18] it was in competition for the Golden Lion[8] and won the Best Screenplay prize.[19] In September and October it screened at various festivals including Toronto, New York, and London.[20][21][22] It had its Asian premiere at China's Pingyao International Film Festival,[23] where Salles was honored with the Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon East-West Award.[24] It was screened in the Limelight section of the 54th International Film Festival Rotterdam in February 2025.[25]

To qualify for the Best International Feature Film category at the 97th Academy Awards, the film was given a limited theatrical run in the Brazilian city of Salvador from 19 to 25 September 2024,[26] followed by a nationwide release on 7 November 2024 by Sony Pictures Releasing.[27] I'm Still Here was released in France on 15 January 2025 by StudioCanal.[28] In the United States, the film received a one-week awards-qualifying run in November 2024 and a limited theatrical release in New York City and Los Angeles on 17 January 2025, before expanding to more cities on 14 February.[29]

The film was released on premium video on demand (PVOD) in the United States on 11 March 2025,[30] and is set to be released on the Brazilian streaming service Globoplay on 6 April 2025.[31]

Reception

[edit]

Box office

[edit]

On its opening day in Brazil, I'm Still Here brought 50,320 people to the cinemas, grossing R$1.1 million.[32] In its first weekend, even though it was the target of a frustrated boycott by the Brazilian far-right,[4] the film debuted in first place at the box office with 358,000 admissions, earning R$8.6 million, surpassing the third week of Venom: The Last Dance (R$6.6 million) and fellow new release Red One (R$5.3 million).[33]

By February 2025, the film had surpassed 5 million admissions, and became the highest-grossing Brazilian film since the COVID-19 pandemic, with earnings of US$25.2 million.[2][34][35]

Critical response

[edit]
Fernanda Torres garnered widespread critical acclaim for her performance and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

I'm Still Here received overwhelming praise upon release by the public, film critics and the press; praise was mainly directed to Fernanda Torres' performance.[36] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 97% of 184 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The website's consensus reads: "Carried along by Fernanda Torres' superb performance, I'm Still Here poignantly explores a nation's upheaval through one family's search for answers."[37] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 85 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[38]

Jessica Kiang of Variety praised the film and its dramatic charge: "Classical in form but radical in empathy, I'm Still Here arguably does not need the follow-up sections—one set in 1996 and the other in 2014—that somewhat alter the emotional rhythm. But on the other hand, these characters are so vivid that we don't want to leave them either".[39] For Wendy Ide of Screen Daily, Salles "never over-labours the film's emotional beats, relying instead on Torres' magnificent, intricately layered performance to drive the picture"; she also praised Montenegro, "who has a brief but exceptionally powerful cameo here as the elderly Eunice".[40]

Several international outlets applauded Fernanda Torres' work, with Collider considering it one of the best performances of the year, being "more than deserving of an Oscar nomination".[41] In her review for Deadline, Stephanie Bunbury describes the film as a "celebration of Brazil", and praises Torres, stating that the actress "has an emotional delicacy as Eunice that conveys, through the smallest and subtlest signals, what it costs her to hold back her anxiety and anger for the sake of her family. It is a performance that should catapult her into the awards race, 25 years after her mother Fernanda Montenegro was Oscar-nominated for Salles' breakthrough feature, Central Station".[42] David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter highlighted the relationship between Montenegro and Torres, saying "What makes the connection even more poignant is that she appears as the elderly, infirm version of the protagonist", and recognized I'm Still Here as "a gripping, profoundly touching film with a deep well of pathos. It's one of Salles' best".[43] For IndieWire, Leila Latif says Torres' performance "is as spectacular as her filmography would suggest, having marked herself out as one of the South American continent's greatest actors in roles in Foreign Land (also directed by Salles) and won a Best Actress Award in Love Me Forever or Never. Her Eunice possesses phenomenal strength and stoicism which make each moment of pain that peep through the chinks of her armor all the more moving", and praised her on-screen interaction with Selton Mello.[44]

Filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón named it one of his favorite films of 2024, stating "Watching a Walter Salles film is to be embraced in generosity, is like experiencing a gravitational pull, both lifting and grounding us at the same time with an invisible yet undeniable force. With I'm Still Here, this effect is even more compelling.[45] Many other filmmakers, including Nicole Holofcener and Chad Hartigan, also cited it as among their favorite films of 2024.[46]

In 2025, Collider ranked it at number 3 on its list of the "10 Essential Movies of the 2020s So Far," with Eddie Possehl writing "With the disease of misinformation and government corruption spreading across the real world, the story told within I'm Still Here is a vital watch for people of every age as society continues to evolve and degrade at the same time."[47]

It was named one of the Top 5 International Films of 2024 by the National Board of Review,[11] and one of 50 Best Films of the year by British film magazine Sight & Sound.[48]

Accolades

[edit]
Main article: List of accolades received by I'm Still Here (2024 film)

The film received several awards and nominations. At the 82nd Golden Globe Awards, the film received two nominations: Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for Torres. Torres won in her category, becoming the first Brazilian actress to win a Golden Globe in an acting category.[49] The film was also nominated for Best Film Not in the English Language at the 78th British Academy Film Awards.[50] At the 97th Academy Awards, the film received three nominations including Best Picture, becoming the first time a Brazilian film is nominated in the category. [51] The film went on to win the award for Best International Feature Film. On 17th February 2025, the film received Cinema for Peace Dove for The Most Valuable Film of The Year. [52]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "I'm Still Here (15)". British Board of Film Classification. 3 February 2025. Retrieved 3 February 2025.
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b c "I'm Still Here (2024)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 17 March 2025.
  3. ^ Jump up to:a b Wiseman, Andreas (28 May 2024). "Walter Salles' Directorial Comeback 'I'm Still Here' Sells To Sony Classics For North America & Raft Of International Territories Out Of Cannes Market". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 29 May 2024.
  4. ^ Jump up to:a b "Perfis de direita pregam boicote a 'Ainda Estou Aqui' nas redes". F5 (in Brazilian Portuguese). 12 November 2024. Retrieved 13 November 2024.
  5. ^ "Boicote a 'Ainda Estou Aqui' é vergonhoso e ignorante – e não funciona". UOL (in Brazilian Portuguese). 20 November 2024. Retrieved 6 December 2024.
  6. ^ Phillips, Tom (4 December 2024). "Brazil film portraying notorious crime during dictatorship strikes chord: 'It hasn't been overcome'". The Guardian.
  7. ^ Nicas, Jack (28 February 2025). "Why These Oscars Mean So Much to Brazil". The New York Times.
  8. ^ Jump up to:a b "Biennale Cinema 2024 | Ainda estou aqui (I'm still here)". La Biennale di Venezia. 9 July 2024. Retrieved 23 July 2024.
  9. ^ Bunbury, Stephanie (1 September 2024). "'I'm Still Here' Review: Walter Salles' Love Letter To Brazil Is A Powerful Warning From History – Venice Film Festival". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 6 September 2024.
  10. ^ Tartaglione, Andreas Wiseman, Nancy (7 September 2024). "Venice Winners: Pedro Almodóvar's 'The Room Next Door' Wins The Golden Lion; Also Wins For Nicole Kidman, Brady Corbet, 'I'm Still Here' & More". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 7 September 2024.
  11. ^ Jump up to:a b "2024 Archives". National Board of Review. Retrieved 4 December 2024.
  12. ^ "'I'm Still Here' makes history as first Brazilian film nominated for Best Picture at 2025 Oscars". The Express Tribune. 23 January 2025. Retrieved 23 January 2025.
  13. ^ Leite, Marcelo (23 January 2025). "Oscars 2025: I'm Still Here's Best Picture Nomination Explained (& When You Can Watch It)". ScreenRant. Retrieved 23 January 2025.
  14. ^ Davis, Clayton (3 March 2025). "'I'm Still Here' Makes Oscar History as First Brazilian Film to Win International Feature Category". Variety.
  15. ^ Barnes, Barnes (2 March 2025). "Kieran Culkin Wins Best Supporting Actor for 'A Real Pain'". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 March 2025.
  16. ^ "Os detalhes do novo filme de Walter Salles com Fernanda Montenegro | Em Cartaz". VEJA (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 29 May 2024.
  17. ^ Amando, Rodrigo (18 June 2023). "Começam as filmagens do longa "Ainda Estou Aqui", dirigido por Walter Salles". Site RG – Moda, Estilo, Festa, Beleza e mais (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 29 May 2024.
  18. ^ Goodfellow, Melanie; Tartaglione, Nancy (1 September 2024). "'I'm Still Here' Political Drama Earns 10-Minute Ovation At Venice Film Festival Premiere". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 1 September 2024.
  19. ^ Wiseman, Andreas; Tartaglione, Nancy (7 September 2024). "Venice Winners: Pedro Almodóvar's 'The Room Next Door' Wins The Golden Lion; Also Wins For Nicole Kidman, Brady Corbet, 'I'm Still Here' & More". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 7 September 2024.
  20. ^ "I'm Still Here". Toronto International Film Festival. Retrieved 18 August 2024.
  21. ^ "I'm Still Here". Film at Lincoln Center. Retrieved 17 February 2025.
  22. ^ "I'm Still Here (2024)". BFI London Film Festival. Retrieved 14 October 2024.
  23. ^ "官方入围 | 第八届平遥电影展短片入围名单" (in Chinese). Pingyao International Film Festival. 4 September 2024. Retrieved 28 January 2025.
  24. ^ Shackleton, Liz (30 September 2024). "'Karst', 'The Sparrow In The Chimney' Win Top Awards At Pingyao International Film Festival". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 28 January 2025.
  25. ^ "Limelight: I'm Still Here". International Film Festival Rotterdam. Retrieved 7 January 2025.
  26. ^ "'Ainda estou aqui', de Walter Salles, tem estreia antecipada em Salvador para poder concorrer ao Oscar; entenda". O Globo (in Brazilian Portuguese). 17 September 2024. Retrieved 9 December 2024.
  27. ^ "Ainda estou aqui". Filme B (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 6 October 2024.
  28. ^ "Les distributeurs ajustent leurs line-ups". Boxoffice Pro (in French). 4 October 2024. Retrieved 9 December 2024.
  29. ^ Grobar, Matt (23 October 2024). "Sony Pictures Classics Sets Release Dates For Pedro Almodóvar's 'The Room Next Door,' Walter Salles' 'I'm Still Here'". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 9 December 2024.
  30. ^ Lammers, Tim (8 March 2025). "Oscar-Winning Docudrama 'I'm Still Here' Gets Digital Streaming Date". Forbes. Retrieved 12 March 2025.
  31. ^ "'Ainda Estou Aqui' no Globoplay: filme estreia em abril". G1 (in Brazilian Portuguese). 3 March 2025. Retrieved 10 March 2025.
  32. ^ "Ainda Estou Aqui bate R$ 1 milhão em bilheteria em sua data de estreia". Metrópoles (in Brazilian Portuguese). 8 November 2024. Retrieved 13 November 2024.
  33. ^ "'Ainda Estou Aqui' estreia na liderança da bilheteria nacional e arrecada R$ 8,6 milhões | Cinema". G1 (in Brazilian Portuguese). 11 November 2024. Retrieved 13 November 2024.
  34. ^ Joshi, Namrata (31 December 2024). "Walter Salles: What is happening in Brazil is the return to the collectiveness of cinema". Cinema Express. Retrieved 28 January 2025.
  35. ^ GABRIELA SÁ PESSOA (30 December 2024). "Brazilian film 'I'm Still Here' tops box office, forcing nation to reckon with dictatorship trauma". AP News. Retrieved 8 January 2025.
  36. ^ "Atuação de Fernanda Torres em 'Ainda Estou Aqui' é elogiada por crítica internacional: 'Deve catapultá-la a prêmios' | Cinema". G1 (in Brazilian Portuguese). 2 September 2024. Retrieved 13 November 2024.
  37. ^ "I'm Still Here". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 16 March 2025. Edit this at Wikidata
  38. ^ "I'm Still Here". Metacritic. Fandom, Inc. Retrieved 21 February 2025.
  39. ^ Kiang, Jessica (1 September 2024). "'I'm Still Here' Review: Walter Salles' Profoundly Moving Sense-Memory Portrait of a Family — and a Nation — Ruptured". Variety. Retrieved 13 November 2024.
  40. ^ Ide, Wendy. "'I'm Still Here': Venice Review". Screen Daily. Retrieved 13 November 2024.
  41. ^ Kiely, Emma (11 October 2024). "'I'm Still Here' Review: Family Political Drama Is One of the Year's Best | LFF 2024". Collider. Retrieved 13 November 2024.
  42. ^ Bunbury, Stephanie (1 September 2024). "'I'm Still Here' Review: Walter Salles' Love Letter To Brazil Is A Powerful Warning From History – Venice Film Festival". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 13 November 2024.
  43. ^ Rooney, David (1 September 2024). "'I'm Still Here' Review: Walter Salles Returns Home With the Powerful Story of a Broken Family's Resistance". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 13 November 2024.
  44. ^ Latif, Leila (1 September 2024). "'I'm Still Here' Review: The Legacy of Rubens Paiva Is Further Fortified by Walter Salles' Loving Biopic". IndieWire. Retrieved 13 November 2024.
  45. ^ Horst, Carole (18 December 2024). "Directors Pick Favorite Films of 2024: Christopher Nolan Praises 'Gladiator II,' Barry Jenkins on 'Nickel Boys,' Jeff Nichols on 'Sing Sing' and More". Variety. Retrieved 8 January 2025.
  46. ^ O'Falt, Chris (30 December 2024). "65 Directors Pick Their Favorite Films of 2024". IndieWire. Retrieved 3 March 2025.
  47. ^ "10 Essential Movies of the 2020s So Far, Ranked". Collider. 26 January 2025. Retrieved 23 February 2025.
  48. ^ "The 50 best films of 2024". BFI. 6 December 2024. Retrieved 6 December 2024.
  49. ^ Rubin, Rebecca (6 January 2025). "'I'm Still Here' Star Fernanda Torres Wins Golden Globe 26 Years After Her Mom Was Nominated in Same Category". Variety. Archived from the original on 6 January 2025. Retrieved 25 January 2025.
  50. ^ "Bafta Film Awards 2025: The nominations list in full". BBC News. 15 January 2025. Retrieved 25 January 2025.
  51. ^ "'I'm still here' is the fifth Brazilian feature film nominated for the Oscar for Best International Feature; revisit them all". O Globo. 23 January 2025. Archived from the original on 24 January 2025. Retrieved 25 January 2025.
  52. ^ "Cinema for Peace Doves 2025".
[edit]
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Reviews
I’m Still Here
Drama
137 minutes ‧ PG-13 ‧ 2025
Robert Daniels
January 16, 2025
5 min read



Within the assured wooden confines of a church, a frightful Eunice Paiva (Fernanda Torres), the wife of former congressman Ruben Paiva (Selton Mello), arrives hoping for answers. But not from God. She is confronting her children’s former schoolteacher, who after being arrested, detained and possibly tortured by Brazil’s military dictatorship, is now trying to keep a low profile in a space that offers people spiritual protection. “My husband’s in danger,” says an exasperated Eunice. “We’re all in danger,” retorts the teacher. That pervading risk, the terror felt by a life suspended or ended, took over Brazil during the violent military dictatorship that gripped the South American country from 1964 to 1985. It’s also the tragedy, as felt in Torres’ incredible performance, at the heart of Walter Salles’ engrossing period drama “I’m Still Here.”


The director’s return to politically historic stories—his portrait of a young Che Guevara in “The Motorcycle Diaries” is similarly about an educated figure becoming an activist after confronting harsh political realities outside their bubble—is a feat of tonal control. Because Salles’ adaptation of Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s same-title memoir (the author is the son of Eunice and Rubens) isn’t built on big speeches or sudden moments of eureka. It is immersive and unhurried, and quietly devastating, taking viewers into the origin of a void left in a wife and a mother.


98.4K

Tyler Perry's Duplicity

In 1970 Rio de Janeiro, Eunice and Rubens live with their five children by Leblon Beach. With white sand as soft as pillows and blue seas as clear as the sky, the idyllic locale should be a soft landing for the Paiva family. An architect and former congressman, Rubens has only recently returned to the country after a six-year self-exile due to the 1964 coup d’état. For the family, however, the dictatorship is never far from the foreground. Military helicopters fly over the beach, and trucks carrying additional troops occupy the streets. Television news stations cover the release of the German and Swiss ambassadors from anti-government factional custody. Rubens also takes secret phone calls in his office, coordinating pickups and drop-offs of packages.


The younger children, Marcelo (Guilherme Silveira), Maria (Cora Mora), and Nalu (Barbara Luz), barely notice these incursions in their seemingly serene lives. Eliana (Luiza Kosovski), the second oldest, is initially less involved, too. Only the oldest, Vera (Valentina Herszage), who is politically awakening to the point Rubens has decided to send her to London with friends, possesses some idea of the grave danger they’re in. Meanwhile, Eunice, along with the maid Zezé (Pri Helena), simply keep the house. Eunice notices Rubens taking these mysterious calls but doesn’t push deeper; she also listens to the radical conversations Rubens and their friend group partake in but does not offer her opinions. Instead, she makes soufflés. And for a time, Salles, too, is content with absorbing the family’s ephemeral domestic dynamic.


The director’s soft yet detailed touch for recreating the era is exemplified in the cozy architecture of the family’s home. Their house is a bustling, lively space filled with brightness, music, art, and books. it’s a cosmopolitan atmosphere brimming with culture, where dance parties soon become cigar-smoke-filled salons. Fresh hues of forest green, cobalt blue, and marigold yellow vibrate in this vital space. Their daily lives in and around the home are often recorded through epistolary means, 16mm home movies, and personal photography, moments of documenting that will be juxtaposed with the paperless trail the family will soon deal with. By taking time to live inside the family’s insecure bubble, Salles makes the eventual puncturing even more agonizing.

The collapse occurs when Rubens is taken for questioning by plain-clothed army officials, a catastrophe that takes the film to darker places and engenders many unanswerable questions. And while it’s not a spoiler to say Eunice and her children will never see Rubens again, those hopeless queries aren’t necessarily what the movie is about. Rather, this poignant film concerns the response to having neither a definitive answer nor final closure. Eventually, Eunice and Eliana will be taken in for questioning, psychologically tortured, and then released. Eunice will pick up the pieces and dig, becoming politically active in the process. We will follow her struggle through the decades—her career as a professor and supporter of Indigenous rights—leaping to São Paulo in 1996 before settling in 2014.

While these autobiographical facts certainly matter to Salles, they, once again, are not the story. He’s far more interested in the psychological turmoil that occurs from not knowing. Torres’ intricate performance, which often reminded me of Carlo Battisti’s guarded sorrow in Vittorio De Sica’s “Umberto D,” underscores that curiosity. Her advanced relationship to her fellow actors and to the camera relies on the character’s desire to force a kind of normalcy in uncommon times. She tries to be present for her children, for instance, but she can’t hide the mourning she wants to experience from her face.

There is also a telling tension to her new homelife immediately following Rubens’ abduction. Eunice hesitates to tell her younger kids about their father’s fate— “he’s traveling,” she says—opting for a false sense of normalcy built on mistruths. Their home therefore becomes a metaphor for their beautiful country, where daily atrocities enacted by an oppressive government happen on a sun-bleached vacation landscape without a full acknowledgement by anyone of their occurrence.


Salles homes in on these cracks and fissures because he intuitively understands the Paiva family. After all, his father Walter Moreira Salles, former chairman of Unibanco, was the country’s ambassador to the United States before the coup d’état. Though his family moved around during his childhood, Salles certainly sees his milieu in their story. He also understands Torres, whose mother, Fernanda Montenegro, became the first Brazilian actress nominated for an Oscar in Salles’ “Central Station” and briefly appears in this film as the older Eunice. Still, it’s difficult to fully contextualize how incredible Torres is here; she matches the film’s silent grief by keenly deploying her character’s internal angst into her slender frame. Through her formidable presence, the deliberate “I’m Still Here,” a film that locates further meaning in the face of Brazil’s present Far-Right wave, remains in the heart long after the picture fades.


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Robert Daniels

Robert Daniels is Associate Editor at RogerEbert.com, and has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Reverse Shot, Screen Daily, and the Criterion Collection. He has covered film festivals ranging from Cannes to Sundance to Toronto to the Berlinale and Locarno. He lives in Chicago, and is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association.
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2023 영적 다큐

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  Top 22 Best Spiritual Documentaries on Netflix in 2023 — Men's Yoga Journa Top 22 Best Spiritual Documentaries on Netflix in 2023 Nov 5 Written By  Jonathan Gilbert Are spiritual documentaries your thing? If so, you will be happy to know that there are a bunch of great spiritual documentaries on Netflix. In this article, we'll share our top  22 spiritual documentaries and movies  available for streaming on Netflix right now! Note: Some documentaries and movies in this list are no longer available on Netflix, however, we have included links to alternative streaming services such as Gaia. Best Spiritual Documentaries on Netflix 1. The Secret (2011) The Secret is probably the spiritual documentary you have heard about. If not, where have you been? The Secret comes from Rhonda Byrne's book of the same title and it offers insight into how our thoughts are what shape our lives. It explores many spiritual concepts such as abundance, spirituality, mindfulness meditation, v...
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The Secret Path (TV Movie 1999) - IMDb

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The Secret Path (TV Movie 1999) - IMDb The Secret PathTV Movie 1999 Unrated 2h IMDb RATING 7.6/10 965 YOUR RATING Rate POPULARITY 1,488 304 Biography Drama In this drama, a neglected young white girl in the rural South is befriended by an unlikely couple and finds the solace and nurturing she needs to transform her downtrodden life. Director Bruce Pittman Writers Rose Mary Evans Bill C. Davis Quinton Peeples Stars Della Reese Crystal Bernard Madeline Zima See production info at IMDbPro STREAMING RENT/BUY from A$3.00 Add to Watchlist Added by 3.5K users 16User reviews 1Critic review Storyline Edit Jo-Ann, a young girl born out of wedlock and abused by her maternal grandfather, finally finds happiness when she is with an older Black couple. Her mother, who has no idea who her daughter's father is, tries to overcome the family's problems, but she is constantly beaten back by her controlling father.— bthcrlsol@aol.com gardener christian 1940s world war two racism 32 more Plot summa...
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