I'M STILL HERE

Wednesday, March 5, 2025
I'm Still Here 2024 aka Ainda Estou Aqui
Brazil, France 
Location: SilverCity
Showtimes: 6:30 & 8:45 pm


Director: Walter Salles
Cast: Fernanda Torres, Fernanda Montenegro, Selton Mello
Running Time; 136 minutes
Language: Portuguese 


Academy Award Nominations: Best Picture, Best International Feature, Best Actress (Fernanda Torres); Golden Globe Best Actress (winner): Fernanda Torres; National Board of Review: Top Five International Films; Palm Springs International Film Festival: Best Foreign Language Film. Vancouver International Film Festival: Audience Award. 39 other wins, 59 other nominations.

“Torres's deeply internalized performance exerts a magnetic appeal, pulling us into her character's unimaginable grief and loss as she fights to remain strong for her family.”—Peter Howell, Toronto Star

Based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s memoir, “I’m Still Here” transports us to Rio de Janeiro in the early 1970s when Brazil’s dictatorship sought to exert its authority through detentions and disappearances. Salles, who also directed the Oscar-nominated “Central Station” (TIFF ’98), focuses on real life Eunice Paiva, whose terrifying experiences transformed her into an activist, lawyer, and hero.

When “I’m Still Here“ begins, life in the merrily crowded Paiva household is warm and jovial, despite the threat of spot checks and arrests that loom over every outing. All this changes when patriarch Rubens (Selton Mello), a former congressman forced to live in exile during the previous decade, is ushered away to provide a mysterious deposition to military interrogators. 

Soon after, officers come for Eunice (a superb Fernanda Torres), holding her 12 days in a windowless prison as they try to persuade her to incriminate friends and associates accused of leftwing activities. Eunice emerges from prison transformed, embarking on a journey to expose the government’s illegal activities and refusals to acknowledge their role in the disappearances of thousands of innocent citizens.

Part of what gives “I’m Still Here” its tremendous power is the way Salles and his collaborators give equal weight to the personal and the political. Eunice remains a loving and fiercely protective mother to her children, even as she pursues the courageous campaign against the dictatorship that will consume several decades of her life. This is an engrossing, deeply moving film about ordinary people who refuse to hide when the tempests of history come calling.