I’m Still Here: The Brutal Brazilian Film That Won The Oscar And Is Based On Real Events

I’m Still Here is one of the films that won several nominations at the 2025 Oscars and is one of the most important films of the year, as it tells a deep, powerful, and moving story based on a real case of dictatorship, loss, and resilience. The film was directed by Walter Salles, the director of films such as Central Station, On the Road and Motorcycle Diaries, and takes us to Brazil in the early 1970s, when the country is experiencing a military dictatorship that generates fear, violence and insecurity, and that has devastating consequences for millions of people. This story unfolds in a real context and shows the impact that violence and dictatorship have on the lives of the people and families who experience it, and all the internal and external changes that this generates. Fernanda Torres took the Golden Globe as best actress for this movie, following in the footsteps of her mom, who received a nomination in the same category 25 years earlier. Torres is only the second Brazilian actress to be nominated, and the first was her mom.

The production was also nominated in the Best Picture category and represents the third presence of the Brazilian filmmaker at the Oscars.  In addition, he directed Central do Brasil, a film that obtained the nomination for Best International Film in 1999 and narrates the journey of a woman and a child from Rio de Janeiro to the imaginary village of Bom Jesus do Norte, a representation of the northern serton of Brazil. Likewise, Salles had the task of producing the feature film Motorcycle Diaries, a co-production of seven nations based on the travel diaries of young Che Guevara in Latin America.  In 2005, the film was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for the work of Puerto Rican screenwriter José Rivera and Best Original Song, awarding the statuette to the song Al Otro Lado Del Río, by Argentine musician Jorge Drexler. The 2025 Oscar Awards ceremony took place in Los Angeles, United States, on Sunday night, hosted by Conan O’Brien, an American comedian and television presenter.

The Trailer for I’m Still Here

The trailer places us in Rio de Janeiro in 1970, where a family leads a normal life, with vacations, games, first relationships, dramas with children and family meals, but everything becomes dark when the military arrives on the scene and when the dictatorship becomes reality, which leads the family to live a very painful situation. It is a film full of color and happy moments but also of pain and fear unleashed by a reality that marked the lives of many.

What is I’m Still Here About?

The film is a portrait of the Brazilian military dictatorship of the 1970s, built from the point of view of a woman who, after her husband (a congressman named Rubens Paiva) is arrested by the military, he faces the harsh reality of his disappearance and having to protect his children and his family from the cruel and dangerous world in which they live.

“BRAZIL, 1971 – Brazil faces an increasingly severe military dictatorship. Eunice Paiva, mother of five, is forced to reinvent herself after her family suffered a violent and arbitrary act by the government”, the synopsis says.

I’m Still Here is based on the biographical book of Marcelo Rubens Paiva and it is not only the story of a grieving family that seeks a way to continue living, but it is a book that brings to light many elements that are part of the history of Brazil and of what was lived in one of the darkest moments, that started after the coup d’état that happened in 1964 that left President João Goulart out and placed Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco as the head of the dictatorship.

By the point where I’m Still Here begins, the dictatorship has been going on for several years; people live with a constant feeling that they are in danger, and few dare to speak about it, and those who do end up detained. Rubens is one of the people who dared to speak and ended up missing.

The film is told mainly from the perspective of Eunice, who is determined to get to the bottom, ready to risk everything in order to discover what happened to her husband.

When is I’m Still Here released?

The movie, titled Ainda Estou Here in Portuguese, premiered at the 2024 Venice Film Festival (and looked for an Oscar in 2025) and is now available in Mexican theaters.

I’m Still Here’s Cast

Fernanda Torres he does an extraordinary job as Eunice, a wife and mother who lives the harshest reality of the dictatorship, while the film also features Fernanda Montenegro, Seton Mello and Valentina Herszage as protagonists.

I’m Still Here at the Oscars 2025

The film received a large number of nominations in different ceremonies throughout the season, and in the Oscars, it took those of best movie, best foreign movie, and best actress for Fernanda Torrez. The film won in the category of foreign films, becoming the first Brazilian film to win an Oscar.