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Ever since Walter Salles’ Brazilian political drama I’m Still Here debuted to acclaim at last September’s Venice Film Festival, Brazilian star Fernanda Torres has been cutting a historic path through Hollywood’s awards season. That continued Sunday night at the 2025 Oscars, where the 59-year-old South America screen diva was nominated for best actress for her powerful performance as grieving mother of five whose politician husband has disappeared amid the darkest days of 1970s Brazil’s military dictatorship.

Torres didn’t take home the Oscar for best actress, though I’m Still Here significantly won the best international feature film category. On the carpet before the ceremony, she dazzled in an embellished Chanel dress, cementing her star quality on the big night.

Going into the ceremony, Torres was considered a longshot against best actress category frontrunner Demi Moore for The Substance which later went to Mikey Madison for Anora. But in...

Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here scooped the Best International Feature Film Oscar this evening, marking the first time that an entry from Brazil has won in the category.

Salles, who has repped Brazil four times now and was nominated for 1998’s Central Station, was greeted with a standing ovation amid loud cheers from the audience as he made his way to the Dolby stage.

Once there, Salles first offered his thanks “in the name of Brazilian cinema.” Then speaking of the film’s subject, Eunice Paiva, Salles added, “This goes to a woman who, after a loss suffered during an authoritarian regime, decided not to bend, and to resist… And, it goes to the two extraordinary women who gave life to her, Fernanda Torres and Fernanda Montenegro.”

Torres, who was a Best Actress nominee this evening, plays Paiva throughout most of the film, while her real-life mother Montenegro plays Paiva as an older woman.

“I’m Still Here,” Walter Salles’ searing drama about the life of Brazilian lawyer and activist Eunice Paiva, has triumphed at the 97th annual Academy Awards to win Best International Feature Film. Salles, along with the producers of his film, took the stage at the ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood to receive the prize, as presented by Penelope Cruz.

A previous nominee for his film “Central Station” in 1998, Salles gave a short and concise speech during the ceremony, focusing on shedding light on the real history that the film spotlights and its anti-authoritarian themes. In addition, he thanked his leading lady Fernanda Torres as well as her mother Fernanda Montenegro, both of whom appear in the film playing the main character, Brazllian lawyer and activist Eunice Paiva, at different stages of her life.

“I’m so honored to receive this, and in such an extraordinary group of filmmakers,” Salles said in his acceptance speech.

Everything old is new again, or, as The Who sang in the ironically titled "Won't Get Fooled Again" — "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." In this awful world, the counterculture becomes corporate culture, and the revolution becomes authoritarian rule. The state is overthrown by the opposition party, who then become the thing they hated — the revolutionary Ortega overthrew the dictatorial Somoza, only to become a dictator himself; Choibalsan took over from Amar and sent him to death before becoming infinitely worse; Rákosi and his 'salami tactics' supplanted Tildy, only to become... well, you get it.

The political register of existence is a ceaseless nightmare, and so we must group together to survive — help your family and friends, because the powers-that-be won't. The title of I'm Still Here reflects that kind of resiliency and the cyclical nature of state-sponsored suffering. I'm Still Here is a Brazilian film from...

All roads in the Brazilian film industry seem to lead to lead to Marcelo Rubens Paiva, and he considers many of the people he has worked with in the last 40-odd years of his life to be family. By coincidence, family is also the subject of the film that has changed his life dramatically over the last six months. Based on Paiva’s 2015 autobiography Ainda estou aqui, Walter Salles’ film I’m Still Here tells the story of his mother, Eunice Paiva, whose politically active husband Rubens was taken by military police in January 1971 and never returned home.

Paiva is no stranger to drama, having overcome tetraplegia after diving into a shallow lake at the age of 20, an incident that informed his first bestseller, Feliz Ano Velho (Aka Happy Old Year) in 1983. But he admits to being overwhelmed by the international goodwill that has followed I’m Still Here since its world...

Fernanda Torres, the very down-to-earth diva of the Brazilian screen, emerges on the terrace of a midcentury modern mansion in Beverly Hills. It’s a crisp and sunny Saturday morning in February. Wrapped in a black overcoat, Torres gazes at an awe-inspiring view of Los Angeles.

She is fresh off a sojourn in Lisbon. Her last memories of the city are from January, when she surprised oddsmakers and herself by winning the Golden Globe for her work in I’m Still Here, a first for a Brazilian actress.

Miu Miu Coat.

“It was so beautiful when I was walking to the stage,” recalls Torres, 59, of beating some of the most famous women on the planet. “Kate Winslet was applauding me and smiling. I don’t know her, so I found that very moving. Tilda Swinton, Nicole Kidman — they were smiling, too.

“Then L.A. was on fire,” she says.

Her Hollywood...

The 2024 ‘Oscar’-nominated live-action political drama feature “I'm Still Here”, directed by Walter Salles (“On The Road”), based on the biographical book by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, stars Fernanda Torres, Selton Mello, and Fernanda Montenegro, now playing in theaters:

“…in 1917 Rio de Janeiro, a Brazilian family sees their father taken away by the dictatorship government, never to be seen again.

“Now the lives of ‘Eunice Paiva’ and her five children abruptly change after the disappearance of her husband…

“…former ‘Brazilian Labour Party’ congressman ‘Rubens Paiva’…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

Fernanda Torres as Eunice Paiva in the Brazilian historical drama I’M Still Here. Photo by Adrian Teijido. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

The Oscar-nominated, true story-based I’M Still Here opens with an idyllic family scene, as mom swims in the ocean, her children play volleyball on the beach. She looks up as a dark helicopter flies overhead, briefly puzzled, before turning her attention back to the water, the beach and her family. Her youngest, a boy, has found a puppy and crosses the street from the beach to their comfortable home. The helicopter is forgotten. But this is Brazil in 1971 and a military dictatorship is in charge of the country, and the military helicopter foreshadows what is to come.

I’M Still Here stars Brazilian great Fernanda Torres as Eunice Paiva, mother of five and wife of Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), a former congressman turned architect, in an adaptation of Marcelo Rubens Paiva...

Sony Pictures Classics has announced additional international release dates for Brazilian Oscar nominee I’m Still Here as the film prepares to roll out in Latin American and Europe.

Walter Salles’ drama starring Oscar-nominated Fernanda Torres will open in Mexico, Chile, Venezuela, and Bolivia on February 6; Colombia on February 13; Argentina, Peru, Uruguay, Dominican Republic, and Ecuador on February 20; Romania on February 21; Slovakia on February 27; and Poland and Turkey on February 28.

I’m Still Here has grossed more than $1m in North America and is scheduled to expand on Friday. The story centres on Eunice Paiva, a matriarch in the early 1970s...

Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez” leads the 7th annual Latino Entertainment Film Awards with an impressive 17 nominations, including best picture, director, and four acting nods for Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz and Zoe Saldaña. Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi sequel “Dune: Part 2” follows with 10.

The Latino Entertainment Journalists Association (Leja), which celebrates the year’s best in film and Latino talent, was also fans of Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance” and Jon M. Chu’s “Wicked,” which earned nine nominations each. These films join other best picture nominees, including “Anora,” “The Brutalist,” “Conclave,” “I’m Still Here,” “Nickel Boys,” and “Sing Sing.”

“I’m Still Here” from Sony Pictures Classics surprised many with its robust Oscar showing, including a best picture nomination. In addition to recognition for Fernanda Torres in best actress, the Brazilian drama also earned nods for director (Walter Salles), adapted screenplay, cinematography and editing.

Leja also announced...

Fernanda Torres landed a Best Actress nomination this morning from the American Academy for her leading turn in Walter Salles’ latest I’m Still Here.

Torres is only the second Brazilian actress to receive an Oscar nomination. The first was her mother, Fernanda Montenegro, who was nominated in 1999 for Central Station, also directed by Salles.

I’m Still Here was co-written by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega and is based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s memoir of the same name set during Brazil’s military dictatorship in the early 1970s. The central figure is Paiva’s mom Eunice, a mother of five who is forced to reinvent herself and her family after her husband Rubens, a politician and engineer who opposed the regime, became one of the government’s desaparecidos (the disappeared), and was tortured and killed.

Sony Pictures Classics, which also released Central Station, acquired I’m Still Here out of the...

Fernanda Torres made history on Thursday morning as only the second Brazilian to receive a Best Actress nomination at the Oscars. The I’m Still Here star follows in the footsteps of her mother, Fernanda Montenegro, who was the first to do it in 1999 for Central Station. Walter Salles directed both films.

In I’m Still Here, Torres plays Eunice Paiva, a mother and activist who copes with the forced disappearance of her husband, the dissident politician Rubens Paiva, during Brazil’s military dictatorship. Adapted from Marcelo Rubens Paiva‘s memoir, I’m Still Here earned an additional Oscar bid for Best International Feature.

In January, Torres stunned pundits by winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Drama Actress, solidifying her status as a serious contender for the Oscars. Montenegro’s portrayal of the older version of Torres’ character in the film adds a sentimental layer to this achievement.

“To have this fairytale...

Still Missing: Salles Returns with Survivors of the Dictatorship

“The dictatorship’s mistakes was to torture but not kill,” former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro proudly claimed in a 2016 interview, referring to the military dictatorship which created a dystopic reality for the country from 1964 to 1985. It was the sort of vicious absoluteness Bolsonaro gleefully reveled in during his 2019 to 2023 reign, an outrageousness earning him the moniker “Trump of the Tropics.” It was during these years Brazilian auteur Walter Salles was developing his first narrative feature in more than a decade, an adaptation of Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s 2015 book I’m Still Here, enhancing the importance of revisiting the contemporary dark ages we’re only a generation or so removed from.…...

This review was originally published on October 26, 2024 as a part of our Middleburg Film Festival coverage.

I’m Still Here, Walter Salles’ latest film, is all about the profoundness of feeling in an unstable, tumultuous time, and how it rocks the boat of a seemingly stable family. The Brazilian film is a family drama wrapped in a political story. It’s focused primarily on Eunice Paiva (Fernanda Torres) and her five children after her husband, Rubens (Selton Mello) — a former congressman who was ousted when the Brazilian Military Dictatorship took over — is disappeared in 1971. Written by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega, I’m Still Here is an evocative, nuanced portrait of family and the lasting imprint of politics.

I'm Still Here is set during the early 1970s military dictatorship in Brazil, focusing on the Paiva family. As the regime intensifies, Rubens, Eunice, and their five children live in an open house by the beach in Rio.

Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language musical Emilia Peréz may be the heavy favorite to win the best international film competition at the upcoming Academy Awards.

But that didn’t stop a host of emerging and established directors from around the world gathering at the Palm Springs Festival Festival to win over Academy voters by touting their audacious storytelling and indie film feats. Many of the filmmakers brought movies that reckon with their past, as with Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here, in which Golden Globe winner Fernanda Torres plays a mother of five children whose family is torn apart when the father goes missing under Brazil’s military dictatorship.

Salles told one of two Oscar best international filmmaker panels at Palm Springs that he based his family drama on a book written by a childhood friend, Marcelo Rubens Paiva, whose family and home he often visited and which played a pivotal part...

In crafting the story of “I’m Still Here,” which chronicles the forced disappearance of a husband and father during the military dictatorship in Brazil, filmmaker Walter Salles didn’t have to imagine much: Growing up in Rio de Janeiro, Salles was close with the man’s family. “I had a very personal link to the story,” he told TheWrap Editor-in-Chief Sharon Waxman. “When I was 13 years old, I [knew] this family at the heart of the film.”

That family is the Paivas. In 1971, the regime that was in power from 1964 to 1985 arrested patriarch Rubens Pavia in his home on suspicion of political dissidence. His loved ones never saw him again. In the film, which is Brazil’s Oscar entry for international feature, Fernanda Torres plays Rubens’ wife, Eunice Pavia, a formidable woman who became a human rights lawyer and devoted her life to uncovering what happened to her husband (played by...

The dizzying part of living under an authoritarian regime is how it makes the very act of caretaking feel like a radical act. When maintaining a home in the face of encroaching fear and paranoia, surveillance and retaliation become emblems of opposition. Yet the mere appearance of normalcy can often also feel indistinguishable from capitulation.

Following Fernanda Torres’ surprise Golden Globe win last Sunday, Walter Salles’ political bio-drama “I’m Still Here” is picking up steam going into Oscars voting as it has now also received the Fipresci Prize for Best International Feature Film at the 36th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival. Salles’ film is based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s 2015 memoir of the same name and follows a mother and activist as she comes to terms with the forced disappearance of her husband, a dissident politician fighting against the dictatorship in Brazil at the time.

Of the film, the Palm Springs jury said in a statement, “To ‘I’m Still Here,’ for conveying the horror of encroaching dictatorship from the intimate perspective of a mother defending not just her family of five, but her dignity. Evoking the severity of the violence without resorting to melodrama, director Walter Salles captures a critical moment of history in scrupulous and compelling detail.

When Fernanda Torres won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama for the superb political drama “I’m Still Here,” the event became like a holiday in her home country, Brazil. President Lula tweeted congratulations. The mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo da Costa Paes, offered to welcome Torres home on a firetruck from the airport. The long-working actress and writer, and daughter of Brazilian film royalty Fernanda Montenegro, could become only the second Brazilian performer Oscar-nominated for acting, after her mother received a nod in 1999 for “Central Station,” another film from “I’m Still Here” director Walter Salles.

When IndieWire spoke with Torres just two days after her unexpected Globes coup over higher-profile actors like Nicole Kidman (“Babygirl”), Angelina Jolie (“Maria”), Tilda Swinton (“The Room Next Door”), Pamela Anderson (“The Last Showgirl”), and Kate Winslet (“Lee”), she was looking at a week of Q&As in Los Angeles and...

Following Fernanda Torres’ Golden Globes win for Best Actress in a Drama, Altitude has dropped a new UK trailer for Award-winning director Walter Salles’ acclaimed ‘I’m Still Here.’

Rio de Janeiro, early 1970s. Brazil faces the tightening grip of a military dictatorship. We are introduced to the Paivas: a father, Rubens (Selton Mello), a mother, Eunice (Fernanda Torres), and their five children. They live by the beach, in a rented house with doors constantly open to friends. The affection and humour they share among themselves are their own subtle forms of resistance to the oppression that hangs over the country. One day, they suffer a violent and arbitrary act that will forever change their lives. In the aftermath, Eunice is forced to reinvent herself and carve out a new future for herself and her children.

The story of this family, based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s bestselling memoir helped to...

“It’s a miracle,” says Fernanda Torres, the star of Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here when congratulated on her Golden Globe nomination for the role.

The 59-year-old Brazilian actress seems the odd one out among the boldface names in the best actress, drama category — including Angelina Jolie for Maria, Nicole Kidman for Babygirl, Tilda Swinton for The Room Next Door, Pamela Anderson for The Last Showgirl and Kate Winslet for Lee — but few who have seen the film would challenge her nomination.

In I’m Still Here, Torres plays Eunice Paiva, a mother of five and wife to former Brazilian congressman Rubens Paiva. When Rubens is “disappeared” by the Brazilian regime, during the country’s military dictatorship — which ran from 1964 to 1985 — Paiva reinvents herself as a human rights lawyer and activist, fighting for justice for herself and families like hers.

Adapted by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega from the autobiographical novel...

Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series featuring the scripts behind awards season’s buzziest movies continues with I’m Still Here, Central Station and The Motorcycle Diaries filmmaker Walter Salles’ personal political drama from Brazil that just made the Oscar shortlist in the Best International Feature category.

Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega co-wrote the screenplay based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s memoir of the same name set during Brazil’s military dictatorship in the early 1970s. The central figure is Paiva’s mom Eunice, a mother of five who is forced to reinvent herself and her family after her husband Rubens, a politician and engineer who opposed the regime, became one of the government’s desaparecidos (the disappeared), and was tortured and killed.

For Salles, the Portuguese-language film is personal: As a kid knew the Paivas and was friends with their children, with the family’s Rio beach house, which was open to all,...

Continuing the trajectory it began after world premiering in Venice, where it won the Best Screenplay prize, this past week Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here was shortlisted for an International Feature Oscar. Salles’ so-called “comeback film” is also a box office phenom in Brazil.

Through Sunday, it has grossed $10.7M in the home market. It originally debuted to No.1 in Brazil the weekend of November 7 and has continued to go from strength to strength.

In its sophomore session, it jumped 28% and in week three became Brazil’s top local title of the year in addition to becoming Salles’ biggest, surpassing Central Station, and Sony’s highest grossing local production in the market.

Drops have been slight since, notably in a competitive landscape with significant Hollywood movies in the mix. In its 7th time at bat, the movie became the 7th biggest local title this century.

Set in Rio de Janeiro...

People are always on a journey in the films of Walter Salles. His 1998 breakout film Central Station saw an abandoned nine-year-old go looking for the father he’s never known, while 2004’s The Motorcycle Diaries had a carefree young Che Guevara becoming radicalized while searching for the soul of South America. More literally, there’s On the Road (2012), his adaptation of the 1957 novel in which beat writer Jack Kerouac tapped into the exploits of his rather more adventurous friends to send himself on a freewheeling trip through postwar USA.

His new film, I’m Still Here, however, has more in common with 2001’s Behind the Sun, a period piece about two feuding rural Brazilian families at the turn of the 20th century. In both of these films, the trek is more of a moral crusade than a matter of geography, as their protagonists try to confront entrenched and seemingly endless cycles...

Altitude has released the UK trailer for Award-winning director Walter Salles’ acclaimed ‘I’m Still Here.’

Rio de Janeiro, early 1970s. Brazil faces the tightening grip of a military dictatorship. We are introduced to the Paivas: a father, Rubens (Selton Mello), a mother, Eunice (Fernanda Torres), and their five children. They live by the beach, in a rented house with doors constantly open to friends. The affection and humour they share among themselves are their own subtle forms of resistance to the oppression that hangs over the country. One day, they suffer a violent and arbitrary act that will forever change their lives. In the aftermath, Eunice is forced to reinvent herself and carve out a new future for herself and her children.

The story of this family, based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s bestselling memoir helped to reconstruct an important part of Brazil’s hidden history.

Directed by Walter Salles and starring Fernanda Torres,...

Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles has been wrestling with languages his whole life. He grew up in Rio de Janeiro and Paris and studied at USC, becoming fluent in his native Portuguese and French plus English. When he followed up his Oscar-nominated and Golden Bear-winning “Central Station” (1998) with “The Motorcycle Diaries” (2004), he became fluent in Spanish.

“I couldn’t possibly do ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’ without having an in-depth understanding of Spanish,” said Salles on Zoom, “because directing actors has so much to do with precision, with the capacity to find that one word that can trigger something fresh and new. Whenever you have to rationally extend yourself, create a sentence, as opposed to that specific word that untaps something, you miss an opportunity.”

But after struggling with his 2012 English-language adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” a beloved novel, he did not make another feature film for 12 years. “I’m...

After a 12-year hiatus from fiction feature filmmaking, Brazilian director Walter Salles has been feeling the love at festivals and storming the box office at home with his moving political drama I’m Still Here.

Fernanda Torres stars as Eunice Paiva, a real-life figure whose husband Rubens Paiva, an architect and left-wing politician, disappeared in 1973, in the early years of Brazil’s military dictatorship. She is joined by Selton Mello as Rubens.

Salles has deep personal ties with the story as a friend of Paiva’s children, who frequented the family’s bohemian Rio de Janeiro beachfront home at the heart of the film, and then witnessed their struggle.

Related: ‘I’m Still Here’ Review: Walter Salles’ Love Letter To Brazil Is A Powerful Warning From History – Venice Film Festival

The movie premiered at Venice, where co-writers Heitor Lorega and Murilo Hauser clinched Best Screenplay, and has been on a festival tour since,...

As we near the New Year, awards season has come into focus and things are looking quite good for international feature contender I’m Still Here. Set in Brazil in the 1970s, a time of military dictatorship, the biographical drama puts the spotlight on Eunice Paiva (Torres), a mother of five who’s forced to forge forward after the disappearance of her husband, former Brazilian Labour Party congressman Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello). Based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s book, I’m Still Here chronicles the deeply profound fortitude Eunice exhibits as she both keeps her family together and earns a law degree in hopes of contributing to holding the government accountable for the human rights abuses committed during this period.

Abduction and murder of Rubens Paiva under the 1964-85 regime is retold in new box office hit I’m Still Here

They came for Rubens Paiva one Wednesday lunchtime in January 1971, barging into his beachfront home in Rio and carting him off – to where nobody knew.

“I didn’t have even the slightest idea what was going to happen. Much less that my sister and my mother would be arrested the next day. It was a terrifying feeling,” recalled the engineer and politician’s son, Marcelo Rubens Paiva, who was 11 at the time.

The new, award-winning live-action political drama feature “I'm Still Here”, directed by Walter Salles (“On The Road”), based on the biographical book by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, stars Fernanda Torres, Selton Mello, and Fernanda Montenegro, opening January 17, 2025 in theaters:

“…in 1917 Rio de Janeiro, a Brazilian family sees their father taken away by the dictatorship government, never to be seen again.

“Now the lives of ‘Eunice Paiva’ and her five children abruptly change after the disappearance of her husband…

“…former ‘Brazilian Labour Party’ congressman ‘Rubens Paiva’…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

The latest feature from Walter Salles tells the remarkable story of Eunice Paiva. Known as a human rights activist in Brazil, Paiva became a lawyer after her husband Rubens was disappeared during the Brazilian dictatorship, in 1971. The film follows her quest for justice all the way up to the modern day.

“I’m Still Here” marks the first feature film by Salles since 2012’s “On the Road,” though he directed shorts and a documentary about Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke. As a child Salles knew the Paiva family, though the film is not a memoir from his perspective.

Instead, it’s adapted from an autobiography by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, the son in the family, and reorients the story around matriarch Eunice. She’s played in a fiercely concentrated, Gena Rowlands-caliber performance, by Fernanda Torres – and in a late-film cameo by Torres’s mother Fernanda Montenegro, 95, an Oscar nominee for Salles’s “Central Station.

“I’ve never worked with such a profound character,” reveals Fernanda Torres about starring in the critically acclaimed “I’m Still Here.” For our recent webchat the renowned Brazilian actress adds, “there are so many layers of doubt and anger and fear. This is a tragic story which is not a melodrama. It’s not something that you just rely on your self-pity. You have to be strong. Eunice is such a profound character with so many contradictions,” she says, noting that the film and Eunice’s story ultimately stand for “the importance of art, the resistance of art, the importance of freedom, and all of that Eunice teaches us to do, not by screaming, but with civility, humanity, and dignity.” Watch our video interview above.

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“I’m Still Here” is directed by Walter Salles from a screenplay by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega,...

This fall, Walter Salles finally returned with his first feature in 12 twelve years, the moving political/family drama I’m Still Here. Led by a powerhouse performance by Fernanda Torres alongside Selton Mello and Fernanda Montenegro, Sony Classics will give Brazil’s Oscar entry a qualifying run beginning next week in LA before opening on January 17. Ahead of the release, the U.S. trailer has arrived for the Venice, TIFF, and NYFF selection.

Here’s the synopsis: “Brazil, 1971. Brazil faces the tightening grip of a military dictatorship. Eunice Paiva, a mother of five children, is forced to reinvent herself after her family suffers a violent and arbitrary act by the government. Based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s memoir, this story portrays an important part of Brazil’s hidden history. “

Savina Petkova said in her review, “Torres is stellar, even with such a hermetic character. Eunice is stoic, almost saintly in her devotion to family,...

On Tuesday, Sony Pictures Classics released the trailer for “I’m Still Here,” Brazil’s submission for International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards.

“I’m Still Here” tells the true story of the Paiva family, whose lives were torn apart by the Brazilian military dictatorship in the 1970s, but rebuilt through resilience. In 1971, Labour Party congressman Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello) is disappeared by the military, leaving his wife Eunice alone to care for their five children. But rather than be silenced in fear, Eunice becomes an activist fighting for justice against the oppressive regime, bringing hidden history to light.

The film is directed by Walter Salles, who is making his return to the director’s chair 12 years after his last film, 2012’s “On the Road.” He’s reuniting with his “Central Station” star Montenegro, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in the 1998 film and is still...

Sony Pictures Classics on Wednesday announced release dates for two of its acclaimed festival titles, The Room Next Door and I’m Still Here, both of which premiered in Venice.

Written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, who has long been in business with the studio, The Room Next Door will be released in NY and L.A. theaters on December 20 and expand to select cities on January 10 before opening nationwide on January 17.

Directed by Walter Salles from a script by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega, I’m Still Here is getting a one-week awards-qualifying run in November and releases in New York and Los Angeles on January 17 before expanding to theaters nationwide on February 14.

Taking home the top prize of the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival, The Room Next Door, starring Julianne Moore, Tilda Swinton, and John Turturro, marks Almodóvar’s first English-language feature. The film follows Ingrid...

Sony Pictures Classics has updated its release dates for awards contenders The Room Next Door and I’m Still Here.

Pedro Almodóvar’s euthanasia drama The Room Next Door won the Venice Golden Lion and will open theatrically on December 20 in New York and Los Angeles, before expanding to select cities on January 10, 2025, and then opening nationwide on January 17, 2025.

Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton star as reunited friends who spend a month together after one reveals she has a terminal illness. John Turturro also stars. The feature marksSpanish maestroAlmodóvar’s first in English.

Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here will open in...

There are traces of something genuinely exploratory in Walter Salles’s I’m Still Here, the director’s first fiction feature in 12 years and certainly one of his most personal. Based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s 2015 memoir, the film traces the effects that the 1971 state-sanctioned kidnapping and murder of the author’s father, Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), have on his immediate family, especially his beleaguered wife, Eunice (Fernanda Torres), who was partially unaware of Rubens’s political dissidence. In the background, the gears of the Brazilian military dictatorship grind ever onward, and there are continuous suggestions of vaster, more clandestine intrigue. The film’s perspective, though, remains firmly aligned with Eunice’s.

Salles knew the Paiva clan personally, having befriended middle daughter Nalu (portrayed here by Bárbara Luz) as an adolescent in Rio de Janeiro. The family’s household, where much of I’m Still Here takes place, is rendered with...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2024.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Brazil has picked Walter Salles’ new feature, I’m Still Here to represent the country at next year’s Oscar race for Best International Feature, 26 years after Salles scooped an Oscar nom in the same category for his 1998 international breakthrough, Central Station.

I’m Still Here, which premiered at Venice last month and had its North American bow in Toronto, is Salles’ first Brazilian feature in 16 years and among his most personal works to date.

It is the story of the family of Rubens and Eunice Paiva and their experience under the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 through 1985. The Paivas were close family friends of Salles and he spent much of his youth in their home with the five Paiva siblings. Father Rubens Paiva was a Brazilian congressman who opposed the dictatorship. In 1971 he was arrested by the regime, tortured, and murdered. Left alone, Eunice is forced to reinvent herself and...

From buzzy world premieres to awards hopefuls making a stop on the way to Oscar gold, the Toronto International Film Festival is one of the biggest film events of the fall. We at FandomWire attended this year’s TIFF, where we saw 43 feature films. While narrowing this crop down to our ten favorites was a difficult task, we eventually narrowed it down to a batch of films we won’t soon forget.

After we share our top 10 films of TIFF with you, we will also share our thoughts on some of the other films we saw at the festival, so be sure to keep reading!

FandomWire’s Top 10 Films of the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival 10. The Room Next Door Image Courtesy of TIFF.

Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar has become one of the most beloved auteurs in international cinema with his unique brand of delicious melodramas. His latest film, The Room Next Door,...

Apocalypse in the Tropics

Venice, Telluride

Brazilian documentarian Petra Costa chronicles the dire state of democracy with this eye-opening exposé, delving into the troubling ties linking Christian evangelism and politics. Getting up close and personal with some powerful people amid a wave of social and political unrest, she shifts between the epic and the intimate, history and the present, to shed light on a phenomenon not only in her home nation, but around the world. — Jordan Mintzer

April

Venice, Toronto

Dea Kulumbegashvili’s miraculous feature centers on an Ob-gyn (a marvelous Ia Sukhitashvili) who performs secret abortions for desperate women in deepest rural Georgia. Like Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, the drama emphasizes the risks of backstreet terminations as well as the shame and expense that prevent access. Offsetting the grimness of it all are bouts of transcendent beauty. — Leslie Felperin

Babygirl

Venice, Toronto

A spectacular Nicole Kidman...

With the possible exception of the animated feature The Wild Robot, no film that has had its world premiere or North American premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival has been more warmly received than I’m Still Here, Walter Salles’ deeply moving portrait of one family’s experience under the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 through 1985.

After being unveiled last week at the Venice Film Festival, where the jury awarded it the best screenplay prize, the film debuted in Toronto at the TIFF Lightbox on Monday afternoon, where — in the presence of Salles and stars Fernanda Torres and Selton Mello — it was greeted with an enthusiastic minute-long standing ovation. (Unlike Cannes and Venice, Toronto is not a fest where standing ovations of any length are a given).

I’m Still Here was adapted from Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s 2015 book Ainda Estou Aqui by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega, and centers on the Paiva family,...