In ‘I’m Nonetheless Right here,’ a household portrait is a type of political resistance

The movie stars Fernanda Torres as Eunice Paiva, the spouse of Rubens Paiva, a former leftist Brazilian congressman who, on the top of the nation’s army dictatorship in 1971, was taken from his household’s Rio de Janeiro house and by no means returned.

However the focus of “I’m Nonetheless Right here,” primarily based on the memoir by Paiva’s son Marcelo, is Eunice, the mom of 5 who was left to remake their household’s life with neither her husband nor any solutions for his disappearance. It unfolds as a portrait of a special type of political resistance — one in every of steadfast endurance. Eunice refuses the army dictatorship’s try to interrupt her and her household. When, in a single scene, Eunice and her youngsters — by then lengthy with out their disappeared father — pose for a newspaper {photograph}, she tells them to smile.

“The smile is a type of resistance,” Torres says. “It’s not that they’re dwelling fortunately. It’s a tragedy. Marcelo lately stated one thing that Eunice stated that I had by no means heard: ‘We’re not a sufferer. The sufferer is the nation.’”

“I’m Nonetheless Right here,” which opens in theaters Jan. 17, is a profoundly transferring story of household life and political oppression. It’s a deeply Brazilian story, made by one of many nation’s most acclaimed administrators and starring the daughter of one of many nation’s biggest stars, Fernanda Montenegro. She seems late within the movie because the older Eunice.

However “I’m Nonetheless Right here” has taken on added that means in Brazil and past. The movie was launched on the heels of the presidency of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who Brazilian federal police final 12 months reported tried a coup in 2022 to remain in energy. Within the years that Salles developed the movie, he noticed quite a few different nations, and their residents, reckoning with the rise of strongmen political leaders.

“Once we began to develop the undertaking seven years in the past, it was actually about attempting to deliver gentle to a previous that wasn’t sufficiently targeted by Brazilian cinema,” says Salles. “Then, little by little, the political scenario shifted to the purpose that we realized the movie was about our current, and in addition about our future.”

These reverberations, and the movie’s acute sense of humanity, has made “I’m Nonetheless Right here” a box-office sensation at house and a celebrated Oscar contender within the U.S. At Sunday’s Golden Globes, Torres received finest actress in a drama over a starry discipline of nominees together with Angelina Jolie and Nicole Kidman. “I’m Nonetheless Right here” is Brazil’s Oscar submission.

To Torres, Eunice Paiva is a heroine of Greek dimensions: a Penelope for contemporary occasions who received’t let the spirit of her household die.

“She’s an amazing information, this character, for these days,” Torres says. “It’s not about ought to we be to the appropriate or to the left. It’s about humanity. It’s in regards to the endurance of the household.”

For Salles, the story of the Paivas is especially private. Rising up in Rio, he was pleasant with one in every of their youngsters and sometimes visited their teeming, music-filled house.

“I bear in mind a home the place the door was all the time open — not possible beneath army dictatorship,” says Salles. “The home windows had been all the time open. Each time I went there, I met folks I had by no means met earlier than. It was a spot to which individuals drifted. Later, I noticed this was the Brazil I needed to stay in.”

The 59-year-old Torres, whose father was the actor Fernando Torres, grew up throughout the dictatorship that lasted till 1985. Her first reminiscences of life beneath it are of her dad and mom nervously making ready to carry out performs for the federal government censor, who may — and generally did — cancel a manufacturing days earlier than opening.

Eunice in some methods reminded Torres of her personal mom. Each mom and daughter had a historical past with Salles. Certainly one of Montenegro’s most well-known roles was her Oscar-nominated efficiency in Salles’ “Central Station.” The 95-year-old Montenegro is the primary and solely Brazilian nominated for finest actress; her daughter could possibly be the second.

Torres had acted in earlier Salles’ movies, “International Land” and “Midnight” . However she had lately starred in well-liked TV collection and written a novel. When Salles despatched her the script for “I’m Nonetheless Right here,” she imagined he was simply in search of suggestions from a good friend. For Salles, although, it finally mattered that “I’m Nonetheless Right here” could be, like its story, a household affair.

“It touched on one thing so private that, greater than anything, I wanted allies together with her sensibility and intelligence and expertise to succeed in the tip of the journey,” says Salles.

Salles, guided by his personal reminiscences, sought to recreate the vigorous environment of the Paiva house, the place artwork and films had been freely mentioned and somebody was often operating out to Ipanema Seashore. “I’m Nonetheless Right here” follows the tragedy of what occurs to the Paiva household and this house, however the film is sustained by the heat the Paivas fostered regardless of the army regime.

“We cooked in that home, to the purpose the place Marcelo, the primary time he entered the home, stated, ‘It smells like my home,’” says Salles. “It was actually about not attempting to create a fictional household however extra about inviting the spectator to spend time with a household I had met personally. It was about capturing life occurring.”

Salles’ melodrama-free therapy of the story — one other deviation from typical movies of political resistance — took adjusting to. The one scene wherein Torres, as Eunice, cried, Salles reduce. The actress estimates she has only one close-up in all the movie.

“Once we had been doing it, I used to be like, ‘Is it going to be good? It’s so easy,’” says Torres. “Once I watched it for the primary time, I couldn’t bear in mind once I began to cry.”

As a substitute of following acquainted story beats, “I’m Nonetheless Right here” unfolds with time, as Eunice refuses to permit the Paiva household’s grief to be the defining issue of their lives. Her resistance is cussed perseverance. It took her 25 years to get a government-issued demise certificates for her husband. Lastly, in 2014, a Nationwide Fact Fee report detailed the killing or disappearing of 434 folks by the army regime, with tens of hundreds extra tortured.

“This will should do with as we speak’s world. We’re confronted with losses and the angst of occasions we don’t absolutely know what’s going to occur. Will somebody knock in your door?” Salles says. “Should you in some way sense the magnitude of pleasure in some unspecified time in the future, this can be how you discover the inspiration to withstand.”

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