19/22
A mother is forced to reinvent herself when her family’s life is shattered by arbitrary violence as Brazil’s military dictatorship tightens its grip in 1971. The Brazilian Film Academy selected it to compete for Best International Feature Film at the 2025 Academy Awards. Eunice Paiva: Martha, you have to help me. My husband is in danger! Martha: Everyone is in danger, Eunice. Introducing Mais Você: Episode 3 December 2024 (2024). A Festa do Santo Reis Written by Léo Maia (as Marcio Leonardona) Performed by Tim Maia. The Brazilian film that has had the biggest international impact in recent years, winning the Best Screenplay award at the Venice Film Festival and being nominated for an Oscar, I’m Still Here dramatizes the Paiva family’s trajectory between the arrest of Rubens Paiva, father and Eunice’s struggle after her husband’s disappearance. Walter Salles immerses the viewer in the intimacy of this family, making them an accomplice, making them care about each other’s fate and creating three-dimensional, real, believable characters. Fernanda Torres plays the role of her life, an almost Greek heroine marked by tragedy, with subtlety, without ever falling into arrogance or caricature. The detailed scenography, the lean script, the natural interpretations, the hand-picked soundtrack, the precise editing, all contribute to the director being able to convey exactly what he intended to do. Since I knew the story, I had read the book on which the film is based, in addition to the reports about it, my attention was drawn to the cinematic solutions used by the director. He manages to transform this story into something universal, capable of communicating with audiences all over the world.
