I'M STILL HERE
(Original Title: null)
Brazil/Portugal (2024) 135 mins.
Genre: Political Drama
Directors/writers: Walter Salles
Cast: Fernanda Torres, Fernanda Montenegro, Selton Mello, Guilherme Silveira, Valentina Herszage, Luiza Kosovski, Barbara Luz, Cora Mora, Pri Helena, Humberto Carrão
Screening 4 February 2026 at Swindon Arts Centre
Synopsis
As Brazil faces the tightening grip of a military dictatorship, mother-of-five Eunice Paiva reinvents herself and her family when authorities abduct her husband. While protecting her children, she slowly has to come to terms with the fact that the world has changed for ever, and so must she.
Reviews
Meticulous in its period detail, I’m Still Here unfolds in a vividly evoked early 1970s Rio, with two later chapters set in 1996 and 2014… the picture represents Salles at his absolute best. It looks sublime: the director chose to shoot on various film stocks, with grainy, skittish Super-16 capturing the energy and excitement of being a teenager running riot on the streets of Rio, and 35mm bringing a pleasing, lived-in texture to the domestic scenes. A terrific soundtrack balances the irreverent energy of Brazilian Tropicália artists such as Tom Zé and Caetano Veloso against a pensive, brooding score by Warren Ellis.
Among the film’s many exquisitely realised scenes is when Eunice decides to relocate the family to go back to college… As the last of their possessions are loaded into the car, the youngest of the Paiva children, Babiu, sits on the doorstep… leaning towards the now empty rooms as though drawn by the magnetic pull of happier times. It’s in this moment, we later learn, that the Babiu “buried” her father, realising then that he wasn’t coming home. I have watched I’m Still Here three times, and this achingly sad single shot has broken me every time.
Fernanda Torres deserves every bit of acclaim and every award she’s won for this film. She is giving a remarkable performance that absolutely deserves to be a part of this year’s Oscar conversation. Her work is restrained, yet explosive. The kind of skill that goes into conveying what this character is feeling seems like an incredibly difficult task…. the amount of fine detail in this performance is staggering in its complexity. If she walks away with the trophy on Oscar night, it will have been very well deserved.
(Torres was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar but it was won by Mikey Madison for her role in Anora.)
A marvellously internalized performance, and one that we can’t tear our eyes away from. She keeps the whole picture grounded in an emotional reality that’s all the more heartbreaking for how subtle it is. The more she perseveres, the more we understand her fundamental helplessness in the face of such unimaginable cruelties — and ours.
Film Facts
- For director Walter Salles, telling the story of the Paiva family was a personal mission - he was friends with the family since he was 13 years old.
- Fernanda Torres plays Eunice Paiva, and Fernanda Montenegro takes on the role of her older self. In real life, Montenegro is Torres’ mother.