I’m Still Here : The True Story Behind the Brazilian Movie
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Every so often, a film comes along that captures tensions felt at home and abroad. Take Get Out. Premiering a month after the transition from an Obama to Trump presidency, its teardown of “post-racial America” myths resonated in other countries grappling with masked liberal racism. Parasite’s satirization of South Korean class divides followed suit two years later amid a rising global tide of income inequality protests. Now, I’m Still Here is poised to join the lineup.
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I’m Still Here, the buzzed-about Brazilian film, tells the true story of one woman’s fight against facism at a moment when democracy feels vulnerable in many parts of the world. That woman is Eunice Paiva, and in January 1971, her life was turned on its head when military police raided her family’s Rio de Janeiro home and arrested her husband Rubens Paiva, an engineer and former politician who had opposed the 1964 establishment of a military dictatorship in Brazil. He was never seen again. Drawing on a 2015 memoir by the couple’s son, the movie follows Eunice’s subsequent transformation into a lawyer, human rights activist, and symbol of resistance against Brazil’s dictatorship.
After 21 years in power, that dictatorship would fall in 1985. (FYI: Support from the U.S. government was a major reason it existed in the first place.) But recent revelations have made its memory feel fresh in Brazil. In November, Brazil’s Supreme Court unsealed an 884-page Federal Police report indicating that far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro planned and actively participated in a plot to remain in power after Bolsonaro was defeated in Brazil’s 2022 election. (Bolsonaro denies wrongdoing; four soldiers and one police officer were arrested for their suspected involvement in a plot to murder current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva before his inauguration.)
The news gave new meaning to I’m Still Here, released in Brazil to box office success weeks earlier despite an attempted far-right boycott. And recent political parallels between the U.S. and Brazil — both countries that have seen false claims of voter fraud and support for insurrection from sitting presidents, with a far-right 2023 uprising striking Brazil that many say was informed by the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol — are likely to strike a chord with American audiences when the movie comes to U.S. theaters this month.
What else can we expect from I’m Still Here? We’ve rounded up everything to know about the upcoming movie and the real events and people that inspired it below.
When will I’m Still Here come out?
Technically, it already has! I’m Still Here premiered on September 1, 2024, at the Venice International Film Festival, where it won Best Screenplay, and was released in theaters in Brazil on November 7.
It comes to U.S. theaters in New York City and L.A. on January 17 before being widely released February 14.
What is I’m Still Here about? The true story behind the movie
Set in the 1970s, I’m Still Here is based on the memoir of the same name by Marcelo Rubens Paiva and directed by Walter Salles (City of God), who knew the Paiva family growing up. Together, they tell the story of what happened to the Paivas under Brazil's military dictatorship and how mother Eunice Paiva (played by Fernanda Torres) fought for justice for her family and for others as a human rights lawyer and activist.
A housewife and mother of five, things changed for Eunice when husband Rubens Paiva, a former congressman and dissident to Brazil’s dictatorship, was abducted by military police from the family home on January 20, 1971. The next day, Eunice and her 15-year-old daughter, Eliana, were arrested. They were hooded, kept within earshot of torture, and given no food or water for 24 hours, according to son Marcelo’s account of the arrest. While Eliana was let go the next day, Eunice wouldn’t be released until 12 days later, emerging a changed person.
She demanded information about her husband, but the government refused to acknowledge Rubens Paiva had even been arrested. While applying pressure to Brazil’s government in an era when it was often lethal to do so, Eunice also had to care for her children. Without official recognition of Rubens’ death — let alone his disappearance — that would mean supporting her family without access to her husband’s bank accounts or the ability to sell their belongings.
In keeping with the resilience that came to define her legacy, Eunice transformed her personal grief and precarity into a means for fighting for others. At age 48, she obtained a law degree and dedicated herself to fighting regime policies that targeted indigenous Brazilians, in particular. In 1987, two years after the dictatorship fell, she continued that work by co-founding an institute dedicated to defending Indigenous autonomy, a mission she also represented as consultant to the constituent assembly responsible for Brazil’s 1988 Constitution.
All the while, Eunice never stopped pressing for answers about the disappearance of her husband and the hundreds of other Brazilians abducted during the military dictatorship. She lobbied successfully for the passing of Law 9.140/95, which legally recognized the death of those disappeared by the regime and directed resources for compensating victims’ families and locating their remains.
Even with the passing of that law, though, Eunice wouldn’t receive a government-issued death certificate for her husband until 2014. It was then that a National Truth Commission report concluded Rubens Paiva was among 434 people killed or disappeared by Brazil’s military regime. That commission heard evidence that Rubens had been tortured, killed, and dumped in a river, and it identified those allegedly responsible for the murder. While five military officers were charged, the cases today remain resolved, and both of the surviving accused officers reportedly continue to receive military pensions costing Brazil about $22,500 per month.
Eunice Paiva died in 2018 after living with Alzheimer’s for 15 years. A folk hero, her tomb has reportedly become a pilgrimage site, and on January 8, President da Silva established a Defense of Democracy award in her name.
How has I’m Still Here been received?
After premiering at the Venice Film Festival on the 60th anniversary of Brazil’s 1964 military coup, I’m Still Here has become a cultural flashpoint in Brazil. Brazilian historian Luiz Felipe de Alencastro, who was also imprisoned during the dictatorship and knew the Pavias, told TIME the film is igniting conversation on YouTube and TikTok: “Daughters of former political prisoners [are] making videos showing photos and telling their family stories,” he says.
Salles, the director, has called public reaction to the movie a “kind of cultural, sociological political phenomenon.” Speaking to Deadline, he said: “People are staying in the film until the very end of the credits and they’re writing [on] social media what the experience was in the screening room that they were at… we couldn’t anticipate that. And it made me think now that literature, cinema, music, can be incredible instruments against oblivion.”
Politically, the movie has held special meaning, too. At an event commemorating the January 2023 assault on Brazil’s Capitol, President da Silva nodded to the film, saying: “We are still here.” And in December, Brazil Supreme Court Justice Flávio Dino cited the movie while arguing that a 1979 law granting amnesty to individuals, including military officials, accused of political crimes during the dictatorship shouldn’t apply to the crime of concealing bodies. “The disappearance of Rubens Paiva, whose body was never found or buried, highlights the enduring pain of thousands of families,” Dino said.
Once it reaches the U.S., where President-elect Trump “joked” about only acting as a dictator on “day one” of his presidency, I’m Still Here is expected to strike a chord. Eunice’s son Marcelo told The Guardian: “I think people are afraid, now even more so with Trump. The world has become something we [thought we] had already left behind.”
Who is in the cast of I’m Still Here?
Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres plays Eunice Paiva, to memorable effect. This month, she took home the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama Film for the role, logging Brazil’s first win in the category. And Torres’ mother, acclaimed Brazilian actress Fernanda Montenegro, appears in I’m Still Here as an older Eunice Paiva.
Also in the film is Selton Mello as Rubens Paiva; Marjorie Estiano as Eliana; and Antonio Saboia as Marcelo.
Does I’m Still Here have a trailer?
Yes, it does. Watch it here:
Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
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