I'm Still Here
A moving drama by Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries, Central do Brasil) about Eunice Paiva's fight for justice following the disappearance of her husband, engineer and politician Rubens Paiva, during the Brazilian dictatorship. Winner of the Oscar for Best International Feature Film.
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.
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, 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 Paiva, holding her twelve 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. (source: www.tiff.net)
To mark the release of I'm Still Here, we are also screening Central do Brasil, one of Walter Salles' earlier films.