The film’s three Oscar nominations – for best international feature film, best actress and best picture – have prompted an outpouring of patriotic delight that such a miserable chapter in Brazilian history might be transformed into something altogether more positive.
Paiva’s son, Marcelo Rubens Paiva – who helped Salles turn his 2015 bestseller into a film – told me that zooming in on one family’s story was intended to expose the “senseless political persecution” such regimes were capable of inflicting on every one of us.
Even more importantly, the film has struck a chord, in Brazil and around the world, as audiences grapple with a new authoritarian age, spearheaded by self-obsessed strongmen not unlike those who ruled Brazil during the 1964-85 military regime portrayed in I’m Still Here.
The South American country has thrown its support behind the film like rarely before, with more than four million people flocking to cinemas to watch it and critics calling it one of Brazil’s best movies in years.
There are many reasons Walter Salles’s heart-rending drama I’m Still Here should win the Oscar for best picture: its gorgeous Brazilian soundtrack, extraordinary, empathetic performances and poignant camerawork to name a few.
