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Penelope Cruz, Walter Salles, Bruce Springsteen and Bowen Yang have been set as the honourees for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures gala fundraiser in Los Angeles on October 18.

Actress Cruz will receive the Icon Award, which the Academy Museum says “celebrates an artist whose career has had a significant global impact.”

Brazilian filmmaker Salles will get the Museum’s Luminary Award, “given to an artist whose singular contributions have expanded the creative possibilities of filmmaking.”

Rock icon Springsteen, who won an Oscar in 1994 for his song Streets Of Philadelphia, from the film Philadelphia, will get the inaugral Legacy Award,...

Penélope Cruz, Walter Salles, Bruce Springsteen, and Bowen Yang will be honored at the fifth annual Academy Museum fundraising gala, taking place on October 18. Presented by Rolex, the star-studded evening raises vital support for the museum’s exhibitions, screenings, and educational programming.

Oscar-winning actress Cruz (“Vicky Cristina Barcelona”) will receive the Icon Award, which recognizes an artist whose career has made a significant global impact. Brazilian filmmaker Salles, who helmed the Oscar-winning international feature “I’m Still Here,” will be honored with the Luminary Award for his innovative contributions to expanding the boundaries of filmmaking. Music legend and Grammy and Oscar winner Springsteen, who is also slated to perform live during the event, will be the recipient of the museum’s inaugural Legacy Award, celebrating his influence on generations of storytellers and his cultural impact. Recent Emmy nominee Yang (“Saturday Night Live”) will be presented with the Vantage Award, which honors...

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures said Thursday that Penélope Cruz, Walter Salles, Bruce Springsteen and SNL‘s Bowen Yang will be the honorees for its fifth annual Academy Museum Gala.

They will be honored October 18 at an event that serves as a key fundraiser to support the museum’s exhibitions, education initiatives and public programming. Last year’s gala, which featured honorees Rita Moreno, Paul Mescal and Quentin Tarantino, raised more than $11 million.

Cruz will receive the Icon Award, Salles the Luminary Award and Yang the Vantage Award. Springsteen is set to receive the inaugural Legacy Award and is scheduled to perform live. Springsteen’s honor goes to “an artist whose body of work has inspired generations of storytellers and deeply influenced our culture.”

Disney’s Springsteen biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere starring Jeremy Allen White will open in theaters the week following the red-carpet event, on October...

Penélope Cruz and Bruce Springsteen's Oscars are about to get some company on the trophy shelf.

The two Academy Award winners (Cruz for Best Supporting Actress for Vicky Cristina Barcelona; Springsteen for Best Song for Philadelphia) will be joined by acclaimed Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles and Saturday Night Live and Wicked star Bowen Yang as special honores at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures' annual fundraising gala.

Cruz, who has been nominated four times for Oscars to go along with a BAFTA and Grammy Award, will receive the Icon Award, which celebrates "an artist whose career has had a significant global impact."

Salles, who directed this year's Oscar-winning I'm Still Here, will be given the Luminary Award for "singular contributions that have expanded the creative possibilities of filmmaking."

Springsteen — the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, who in addition to winning an Oscar was also nominated for Dead Man Walking and has 20 Grammys,...

Bruce Springsteen was “Born to Run” into the 2025 Oscars race.

As The Boss gears up for the release of his much-anticipated biopic “Deliver Me from Nowhere” later this year, the iconic singer is already set to be honored during the fifth annual Academy Museum Gala. The timing couldn’t be better: The Academy Museum Gala will take place October 18, with “Deliver Me from Nowhere” arriving in theaters in October 24. Springsteen will be portrayed by Jeremy Allen White, with Jeremy Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, Stephen Graham, Marc Maron, Gaby Hoffmann, and David Krumholtz also starring in the ’80s-set feature.

The Academy Museum Gala recognition further ushers in the presumed Springsteen mania of this upcoming awards season. Springsteen will receive the museum’s inaugural Legacy Award and is also set for a live performance at the ceremony. The Legacy Award “honors an artist whose body of work has inspired generations of storytellers and deeply influenced our culture,...

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is set to honor Bruce Springsteen, Penélope Cruz, Bowen Yang and Walter Salles at its fifth annual fundraising gala, set for Oct. 18.

Springsteen, who will perform live at the event, will receive the inaugural Legacy Award, given to an artist whose body of work has inspired generations of storytellers and deeply influenced culture. Cruz is being recognized with the Icon Award, celebrating an artist whose career has had a big worldwide impact.

Yang will receive the Vantage Award, given to an emerging artist helping to challenge existing, entrenched narratives around film.

Salles is set to be honored with the Luminary Award, given to an artist whose contributions have expanded the creative possibilities of filmmaking.

Both Springsteen and Cruz are Oscar winners, and Yang is part of the cast of the Oscar-winning Wicked, the second part of which, For Good, is set to hit theaters on Nov.

The scenes of celebration across Brazil in Carnival season when Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here won the Best International Feature Film Oscar in March were akin to the country winning the World Cup.

The excitement followed a post-pandemic record-breaking $35.6 million box office in Brazil for the drama starring Fernanda Torres as real-life figure Eunice Paiva, whose husband Rubens Paiva disappeared from their home in the early years of Brazil’s 1964-85 military dictatorship.

“That explosion of joy in the middle of the Carnival, which is the peak of our popular culture and the best of Brazil, the best of our collective capacity to actually say who we are, was extraordinary,” says Salles.

Related: ‘Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning’ Cannes Film Festival Premiere Photos: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Angela Bassett, Hannah Waddingham & More

The victory came hot on the heels of the Berlinale Grand Jury Prize win for Brazilian filmmaker...

The Doha Film Institute’s Qumra workshop wrapped on Wednesday after six days of masterclasses, labs and mentoring sessions held in the Qatari capital aiming to connect the Arab filmmaking community with the rest of the world. The event’s 11th edition unfolded against the backdrop of a broken Middle East ceasefire and U.S. President Donald Trump’s trumpeted tariffs, but these happenings did not disrupt the event’s positive tone.

Qumra, named after the Arab word believed to be the origin of “camera,” saw some 300 top industry reps — including sales agents, producers and top festival programmers — congregate in Doha, which played a key role in mediation efforts between Hamas and Israel. The event unveiled a new crop of first and second works mostly by Arab directors comprising 49 projects, 27 of which are feature films, either in development or post-production.

Many projects are supported by the Doha Film Institute, which...

Walter Salles has described the “explosion of joy” in Brazil at his Oscar win for I’m Still Here as “the most beautiful gift”.

Speaking after his masterclass at the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra lab, Salles said the film “allowed younger generations to have a better understanding of what had happened in their own country. It was the contact with a hidden part of history that surfaced, and that is what made the film theirs.”

“There’s always a moment where the film ceases to be made by the family that allowed it to exist, and becomes something that belongs...

Walter Salles has revealed he is eager to work again with The Motorcycle Diaries star Gael García Bernal, and that an opportunity nearly arose ahead of his making Oscar-winning drama I’m Still Here.

“We’ve been trying for a long time,” Salles told journalists at the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra event this weekend, saying they had worked on a project involving characters from different Latin American countries that had not come to fruition.

“I developed it for Gael. I would love to work again with Gael. He’s one of my closest friends and one of the persons I love most in life and in cinema as well, he was an incredible co-author of The Diaries,” Salles said of the Mexican star, whose recent credits include La Máquena and Holland.

“I love the idea of cinema being done by a family, and Gael is certainly part of that family…...

Oscar-winner Walter Salles, fresh from scoring the best international feature statuette for “I’m Still Here,” discussed the impact of his political drama on youth audiences in Brazil and underlined the importance of cinema as “an extraordinary tool of resistance” while attending the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra workshop in Qatar.

“I’m Still Here,” the story of Brazilian activist Rubens Paiva’s 1970 disappearance at the hands of the Brazilian military dictatorship and his wife Eunice Paiva’s subsequent search for justice, recently marked a historic first Oscar win for Brazil. Salles also pointed out that the film has now been “embraced by young generations of Brazilians” for whom it provided “access to a part of their history that had somehow been hidden.”

”The film has become their film,” Salles added, noting that Brazilian youths “took possession” of “I’m Still Here” and then “went to social media to narrate their own stories...

Fatma Al Remaihi, CEO of the Doha Film Institute (Dfi), spoke out against the attack by Israeli settlers on and arrest by Israeli police of Hamdan Ballal, co-director of Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land.

“The recent attack on Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal proves that even winning the most prestigious award, an Oscar, does not offer any safety from violent oppression by the occupation,” said Al Remaihi, speaking at the opening of the 2025 edition of the Dfi’s Qumra lab. Ballal was released the day after his arrest.

Remarking that this year marks the 15th anniversaryof Dfi, Al Remaihi said, “We...

Brazilian director Walter Salles kicks off the 11th Doha Film Institute’s Qumra meeting this Friday, in one of his first international appearances since political drama I’m Still Here won the Best International Feature Film Academy Award on March 2.

Running from April 4 to 9 in Doha, and then online from April 12 to 14, annual talent and project incubator Qumra will host the directors and producers of 49 works supported by Qatar’s Doha Film Institute (Dfi) in various stages of development and production.

Salles is attending as a “Qumra Master” alongside Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz, Iranian and French cinematographer Darius Khondji, Mexican costume designer Anna Terrazas and Hong Kong filmmaker Johnnie To.

In this role, they will each give a masterclass on their careers and lessons learned for the emerging filmmakers in the room and also mentor a...

A few weeks after Walter Salles’s “I’m Still Here” made history as the first-ever Brazilian film to win an Oscar, the country continues its great momentum with “Raul Seixas: Let Me Sing,” the first Brazilian series to ever play France’s Series Mania, the largest TV event in Europe. Like Salles’s film, the project is an original production of Globoplay, the freemium streaming service of Brazilian media giant Globo, and tells the story of one of Brazil’s greatest music stars, Raul Seixas.

The eight-episode series will have its world premiere in the International Panorama Competition, where it will run for best series, director, actor, actress, and the Student Award. “Raul Seixas: Let Me Sing: is created by Paulo Morelli (“City of Men”), who co-directs with his son, Pedro Morelli (“Brotherhood”), under banner O2 Filmes, where Paulo Morelli partners with Andrea Barata Ribeiro and Fernando Mereilles.

Ravel Andrade...

Walter Salles’ Oscar-winning film I’m Still Here is a powerful and poignant retelling of the forced disappearance of Rubens Paiva, a civil engineer and former congressman, during the military dictatorship in Brazil. Salles allows us to spend over thirty minutes getting to know the Paiva family up close. Rubens and Eunice had settled with their five children (four daughters and one son) in Leblon, Rio de Janeiro, and their house was filled with joy and laughter. Rubens’ tenure as a congressman was revoked following the 1964 Brazilian coup d’état, and he and his family had to spend a few years abroad before moving back to Brazil again. Even though the military presence and constant news of abductions and killings bothered them, they tried to hold onto their happiness by celebrating every little win in life. The film is as much about loss and pain as it is about resilience and courage.

Carnival celebrations were raging across Rio on Sunday night when everyone stopped.

The Oscar for best international feature was about to be announced from Hollywood, and all eyes were fixed on whether the country or anyone associated with it could win its first Oscar. I’m Still Here, Walter Salles’ drama set during Brazil’s two-decade military dictatorship that ended in 1985, was nominated for the international prize as well as two others.

The festivities had already been shot through with Academy Awards. People danced around elétricos, music-blaring floats, joyous over the movie’s recognition 6,000 miles north. Some creative types had even taken the Boneco de Olinda, a giant traditional puppet often seen during Carnival, and tricked it out to depict star Fernanda Torres holding an awards statue. This was possibly the biggest, and certainly the coolest, Oscar watch party ever convened.

And so when Penélope Cruz read the name I...

After celebrating its three Oscar nominations for Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here” with the same excitement it normally reserves for the soccer World Cup, Brazil went into overdrive when it took home the best international feature statuette.

The Sambadrome at Rio de Janeiro Carnival was hosting processions when it erupted in jubilation as the Oscar win for “I’m Still Here” was announced by the Carnival commentator. The period political drama was already part of the event as best actress nominee Fernanda Torres was named one of the Carnival’s muses.

Brazilian president Lula issued a statement that “Today is a day to feel even prouder of being Brazilian, proud of our cinema, our artists and above all proud of our democracy. A recognition to this extraordinary work which showed Brazil and the world the importance of the struggle against authoritarianism.”

Globo, Brazil’s TV giant, issued a press release celebrating the win,...

One of the dark horses of the 2025 awards season, Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here” managed to claim the Oscar for best international film on Sunday night from under the nose of long-standing favourite “Emilia Pérez.”

The acclaimed drama became the first Brazilian feature to claim the honor — although several awards pundits suggested the film, a powerful exploration of love and grief set during Brazil’s military dictatorship of the 1970s, had a decent swing at landing its other nominations of best actress for Fernanda Torres and — even — best picture.

But the one win for “I’m Still Here” was enough to provoke wild celebrations on the streets of Rio de Janeiro, where Torres, already something of a national hero, had been named an unlikely muse of this year’s carnival.

As it turned out, the timing of “I’m Still Here’s” awards ascendancy couldn’t have been better for its...

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.

Brazil has won its first Oscar for international feature for I’m Still Here, the story of a family broken apart amid a dictatorship. Notably, the feature edged out France’s Emilia Pérez, which took home multiple Oscars earlier in the evening.

Director Walter Salles credited the woman who inspired the film — Eunice Paiva — and the women who brought her to life, daughter-mother pair Fernanda Torres and Fernanda Montenegro.

“This goes for a woman who, after a loss suffered during an authoritarian regime, decided not to bend — and to resist. So this prize goes to her. Her name is Eunice Paiva,” Salles said to massive applause, including from star Torres.

I’m Still Here, also nominated for best picture, tells the real-life story of a mother of five children who reinvents herself as a lawyer and activist after the devastating disappearance of her political dissident husband at the height of Brazil’s military dictatorship.

Brazil's I'm Still Here captured Best International Feature at the 2025 Oscars on Sunday, becoming the country's first winner in this category after four previous nominations.

I'm Still Here, which led the Gold Derby odds, defeated Emilia Pérez (France), Flow (Latvia), The Girl with the Needle (Denmark), and The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Germany).

Directed by Walter Salles, I'm Still Here stars Fernanda Torres as a mother forced to reinvent herself when her family's life is shattered by an act of arbitrary violence during the tightening grip of a military dictatorship in Brazil, 1971. The film was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Actress (Torres). This was the second Salles film nominated in this category after Central Station (1998), which lost to Life Is Beautiful (Italy). Other previous nominees from Brazil were Four Days in September (1997), O Quatrilho (1995), and Keeper of Promises (The Given Word) (1962).

"Thank you in the name of Brazilian cinema,...

“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.

Walter Salles’ deeply moving drama “I’m Still Here” has won the Academy Award for best international feature, marking a historic first for Brazil.

The film, which tells the real-life story of Eunice Paiva’s decades-long search for justice after her husband’s disappearance during Brazil’s military dictatorship, has been gaining momentum in recent weeks. Its surprise nomination for best picture — alongside expected nods for international feature and best actress for star Fernanda Torres — solidified its status as a major contender.

The film beat out France’s “Emilia Perez,” Germany’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” Denmark’s “The Girl With the Needle” and Latvia’s “Flow.”

“I’m so honored to receive this, and in such an extraordinary group of filmmakers,” Salles said during his acceptance speech. “This goes to a woman who, after a loss suffered during an authoritarian regime, decided not to bend. And to resist.

Walter Sallesis a humanist filmmaker, thanks to his ability to identify the emotional truths behind complex stories; even if his masterpieces, The Motorcycle Diaries and I’m Still Here,are technically biopics about important historical figures within Brazilian history, they tell relatable stories about family, adolescence, and coming to grips with the future. Salles’ ability to tackle ambitious material from a unique perspective made him perfectly suited to handle a legendary novel of the “Beat generation” that was largely considered to be “unfilmable.” Salles crafted a surprisingly engaging, provocative adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s classic novel On the Road, and did so with one of the most impressive ensembles in recent history.

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...

Walter Salles, Johnnie To, Lav Diaz, Darius Khondji and Anna Terrazas will serve as Qumra Masters at the 11th edition of the Doha Film Institute’s annual talent and project incubator.

They follow in the wake of some 50 top cinemas figures who have also taken up the role over the past 10 editions, including Claire Denis, Leos Carax, Tilda Swinton, Gael Garcia Bernal and James Gray.

The event, running from April 4 to 9, will invite the producers and directors of some 40 projects supported by the Doha Film Institute (Dfi) for six days of development support and networking.

Brazilian director Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries) will be in attendance at the meeting fresh from his buzzy awards season with his Oscar-nominated drama I’m Still Here.

Filipino director Diaz brings his vision of a special brand of slow cinema which includes films such as The Woman Who Left and Evolution of a Filipino Family.

Iranian-French...

Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles and Filipino director Lav Diaz are among the five Masters invited to the 11th edition of the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra lab.

Hong Kong filmmaker Johnnie To, Mexican costume designer Anna Terrazas and Iranian-French cinematographer Darius Khondji round out the 2025 Masters.

The 11th edition of Qumra will run from April 4-9 in Doha, Qatar.

The Masters will give one-on-one mentorship to the Qumra lab participants, and will each give a masterclass about their careers.

Salles is nearing the end of an awards campaign for his 10th feature film I’m Still Here. The film debuted in competition at Venice last year,...

Rank Film (origin)DistributorFeb 21-23 gross Total Week 1 Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy (UK-Fr-us) Universal £6.9m £27.3m 2 2 Captain America: Brave New World (US) Disney £2.9m £13.2m 2 3 Dog Man (US) Universal £2m £11m 3 4 The Monkey (US) Black Bear £1m £1.1m 1 5 Mufasa: The Lion King (US) Disney £585,083 £32.3m 10

Gbp to Usd conversion rate: 1.26

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy has topped £27m after just two weekends at the UK-Ireland box office; as Black Bear’s The Monkey climbed into the top five on its first outing.

Universal’s Mad About The Boy added £6.9m on its second session – a relatively slim...

Ne Zha 2, the fantasy epic that’s been setting records in China, opened to $7.2 million on 660 screens, according to Comscore, for the no. 5 spot at a domestic box office being trounced by Captain America: Brave New World.

The animated film from Cmc Pictures, see Deadline review, takes up where the 2019 original left off as Demon Orb Ne Zha (voiced by Joseph) and Spirit Orb Aobing (Mo Han) must share a body for seven days as Ne Zha battles dragons to save his hometown, and a lot more. Written and directed by Yang Yu (known as Jiaozi), the cast also includes Jiaming Zhang and Deshun Wang. It set an all-time record box office record during the annual Lunar New Year holiday and has passed $1.5 billion in China alone, making it the second-biggest animated film in global box office history after Inside Out 2.

Becoming Led Zeppelin from Sony Pictures Classics...

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...

Gabriel Mascaro’s “The Blue Trail,” playing in competition in Berlin, marks another great milestone for Brazilian cinema in a year where the country got its first best picture Oscar nomination with Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here.” Mascaro follows in the footsteps of Salles playing in competition in Venice and Karim Aïnouz playing in competition at Cannes with “Motel Destino,” three consecutive Brazilian films playing in the most prestigious strands of the three most important European film festivals.

“Each one of these films is so different from each other but has great strengths,” Mascaro tells Variety ahead of his Berlinale bow. “I feel very proud to be a part of it.”

“The Blue Trail” takes place in a near future Brazil where the government relocates the elderly to senior housing colonies so the younger generations can fully focus on productivity and growth. Tereza (Denise Weinberg), nearing 80, refuses to accept her fate,...

“My goal is to create an experience. Music is closer to filmmaking than any other art. It transcends culture. Filmmaking is a language in itself. Images are a language, they are not foreign,” states Gints Zilbalodis, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker whose Flow is up for Best Animated Feature and Best International Feature at Oscars. He joined an international directors panel at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival with three other auteurs whose films are nominated in the international race: Jacques Audiard (Emilia Pérez), Mohammad Rasoulof (The Seed of the Sacred Fig), and Walter Salles (I’m Still Here). It was moderated by Roger Durling.

On Flow, Zilbalodis “didn’t want the camerawork to feel constructed but rather based in discovery. I’m not interested in manufacturing emotion,” and Salles had a similar approach to his real-life heroine Eunice Paiva in I’m Still Here, who is “inspiring” for how she “can confront this...

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...

Twelve years after co-directing Berlinale entry “The Man of the Crowd,” renowned director Marcelo Gomes is once again joining forces with filmmaker and visual artist Cao Guimarães (“From the Window of My Room”) for a new film, titled “Cape of Pleasures.” The dystopian thriller is one of the projects selected at this year’s CineMart, the co-production market of the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Speaking exclusively with Variety ahead of the festival, Gomes says the idea for the film came out of reflecting alongside Guimarães on what currently afflicted them. “With ‘The Man of the Crowd,’ we made a film about our affliction about loneliness in big cities. ‘Cape of Pleasures’ came out of our fear of aging in a country with a latent desire for eternal youth. Being old is almost a crime in Brazil.”

“Cape of Pleasures” takes place in a near future in Brazil where a totalitarian...

The 2025 Oscar nominations were unveiled today (January 23), with Emilia Perez leading the way with 13 nods, followed by The Brutalist and Wicked on 10 each.

Screenpicks out five talking points from this year’s nominations. The Oscar ceremony will take place on March 2.

Strong showings and shut-outs

No film has had a stronger showing thanEmilia Perez,France’s entry for best international feature and nominated in all the major categories for which it is eligible. Directed by French auteur Jacques Audiard and shot mostly in Spanish and mostly in France, standing in for Mexico, it is also an old-fashioned musical.Despite the...

As expected, Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez (Netflix) landed a Best International Feature Film Oscar nomination today, one of a leading, and record-setting 13 overall for a film not in English. Other mentions for the audacious musical melodrama include Best Picture, Director, Actress and more.

With so many inclusions elsewhere, it’s possible that votes are split and Emilia Pérez does not convert to a win in the International race with folks opting to honor another deserving picture. But, if it does win, it would be the first time that a selection from France scores an Academy Award in the International category since Régis Wargnier’s Indochine in 1993.

The other titles in the International Oscar field doing crossover duty include Walter Salles’ lauded and so-called “comeback” movie, I’m Still Here from Brazil where it has done terrific box office for Sony. The movie also scored a Best Picture nomination as well...

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...

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.…...

It may have taken 12 years for Walter Salles to direct another feature after his 2012 adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” but with his awards-buzzy political bio-drama “I’m Still Here,” the Brazillian filmmaker proves that cinema will always remain in his veins. Extolling the power of the form, Salles took to the Criterion Closet recently to share his appreciation for a number of films that have shaped him as an artist and continue to inspire. After starting with Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Andrei Rublev,” Salles went on to select Jim Jarmusch’s absurdist comedy “Stranger than Paradise.”

“I think it was so refreshing to…starting to do films and see that narratives could be actually told in a different manner than the Greeks had teached us at the beginning, you know, the structure with five acts and character arcs and everything else,” said Salles, “and what Jim Jarmusch offers us...

Walter Salles-directed I’m Still Here caps weeks of packed screenings after a Best Actress Golden Globe win by star Fernanda Torres with a theatrical release from Sony Pictures Classics on five screens in New York and LA. The distributor’s The Room Next Door jumps from 44 screens to over 850, the widest release of a Pedro Almodovar film.

Mubi is out with documentary Grand Theft Hamlet, A24’s Colman Domingo-starring Sing Sing is back at 500+ theaters, Bleecker Street’s Hard Truths by Mike Leigh, starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste, expands to 120 screens.

Torres of I’m Still Here is the daughter of Brazilian icon Fernanda Montenegro who was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Oscar for Salles’ breakout film Central Station. Earlier this month, Torres dedicated her Golden Globe to her mother, saying, “She was here 25 years ago and this is like proof that art can endure through life.” Her speech was a hit,...

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.

Established via a coup in 1964, the Fifth Brazilian Republic had been in place for close to seven years when government officials showed up at the house of Rubens Paiva. He had been a former Congressman who’d been vocal about the regime change back in the day, but Paiva was out of politics now and working as an engineer in Rio de Janeiro. Still, the men had some questions for him in regard to leftist groups who may or may not have been involved with a recent kidnapping. They asked...

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 Best International Feature Film award went to the Brazilian film “I’m Still Here,” which was the festival’s surprise winner. The festival, which took place from January 2 to 13, 2025, featured 165 films from 71 countries, including 35 films competing for the Academy Awards’ International Feature Film category.

“I’m Still Here,” directed by Walter Salles, gives a touching view of life as a regime takes hold. The international jury applauded the film for its strong story, which highlighted its intimate portrayal of a mother’s fight to keep her family safe and maintain her dignity during a crucial historical moment. The jury noted that Salles shows this truth clearly and effectively without being overly dramatic.

Zoe Saldaña won the Fipresci Prize for Best Actress for her strong performance in the movie Emilia Pérez, directed by Jacques Audiard. Even though her part was meant to be supportive, the jury recognized her impressive acting skills. They...

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.

Fernanda Torres, the Brazilian actress who won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama, doesn’t like how Hollywood is so focused on “nepo babies.” She thinks this conversation distracts from more important issues of inequality.

The award went to Torres for her quiet performance in “I’m Still Here.” Torres comes from a famous entertainment family; her mother is the famous actress Fernanda Montenegro. She is proud of her background but criticizes the entertainment business for focusing too much on nepotism.

In an interview with IndieWire after her win, Torres said, “I’m now the nepotism baby that proved that it’s worth living.” She disagreed with the idea that people with ties should be fired right away, saying, “You don’t have to kill a repo baby as soon as he is born.” People learn from their surroundings; this idea is very old.

The phrase “nepo baby...

The awards race for best international feature is sizing up to be one of a single, undeniable frontrunner and a diverse pack of contenders with strong upset potential.

The clear one to beat is Emilia Pérez. Jacques Audiard’s transgender Mexican cartel crime drama/musical, France’s entry, is on track for Academy Award nominations across several categories, including best picture, director, actress (for Karla Sofía Gascón), supporting actress (Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez) and multiple technical categories. Add to that Netflix’s marketing might, and Emilia looks as close to a sure thing as any title on Oscar’s dance card.

After that, the international competition gets harder to parse, but there are a handful of films that have emerged from the festival circuit with sufficient critical buzz and awards momentum to make them potential Pérez rivals.

Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here and Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig,...

When the actor known as “Russia’s Timothée Chalamet” attended the Gotham Awards last month, he never expected to come face-to-face with the real Timothée Chalamet. “It was such a crazy thing,” says “Anora” star Mark Eydelshteyn of meeting the Gotham Awards’ Visionary Tribute honoree. “I know many amazing actors, but they’re very far from me. I could feel Tim’s vibe up close. I was so lucky to talk with him, just to see that he’s a real, warm and kind person.”

You can expect more moments like this in the near future. Ever since Italian star Ever since Italian star Sophia Loren became the first actor to win an Oscar for a non-English speaking role in 1961 for “Two Women,” few award seasons have boasted as many top acting contenders from outside the U.S. as this one — which is not to say that it’s been an easy road for them.