There was something about the Paiva family home that Walter Salles never forgot. It was a few blocks from the beach in Rio de Janeiro. The doors and gates were always unlocked, the windows open to let in sunlight and sea breezes. It was filled with music and dancing, parties and people, debates and ideas. But that all changed in 1971 when Rubens Paiva, a former left-wing congressman turned engineer, was taken away by the police or military (it was not clear at first) to be interrogated, tortured, and ultimately killed. That left his wife Eunice and their five children to pick up the pieces and search for answers that were in short supply as Brazil had already been in a military dictatorship for seven years that would last another fourteen.
“There was such a vitality in the house. It was a place we all wanted to wander through,” said Salles, who was a teenager when he visited the family. “When we passed by one day, it was completely closed and guarded by the police. You can imagine the shock.”
Salles grew up to become one of Brazil’s greatest filmmakers. He spent much of his career dramatizing his country’s slow, often lumbering move toward democracy in films like “Central Station.” But “I’m Still Here,” which documents that harrowing period in the Paivas’ lives, may be his most personal yet because it concerns people he knew so well. What he has accomplished is nothing short of a triumph, but also an urgent reminder of the dangers of authoritarianism. The film debuted to raves at the Venice Film Festival, with critics hailing Fernanda Torres’ performance as Eunice as Oscar-worthy. The film will screen at this year’s Toronto Film Festival before Sony Pictures Classics releases the film domestically this fall.
Although the film deals with explosive subject matter, Salles took a subdued approach to the production. He resisted close-ups, push-ins or other camera movements that would have increased the tension in a melodramatic way. “I tried not to heighten the emotions,” he says. “I wanted to be honest.”
And he takes the time to investigate Rubens’ disappearance, following the parents and children through summer days on the beach, evenings at the ice cream parlor and social gatherings where Eunice’s famous soufflés were in demand. “You had to let life breathe,” Salles says. “In the beginning I want to invite you to be sensory in a family.”
The aim was to make clear how much joy disappeared when Rubens ‘disappeared’. To help the actors get into the right emotional state, he shot the picture chronologically. It was a logistical nightmare for a film shot on location, as shifts in weather or availability often necessitate things being filmed out of order. “It allowed me to get into the shoes of my character,” Torres says. “You had this sunny part of the movie with kids and parties and friends. Then it’s all taken away and you’re filled with this sense of loss. I felt like I, Fernanda, had experienced that.”
Salles encouraged Torres to downplay Eunice’s sadness and fear, reminding her that her character must hold it together for the sake of her young children. “She’s silent,” Torres says. “She can’t just panic. She has no time for self-pity. But there is something profound in her actions. When something violent happened to her, she remained calm. She smiled. She didn’t show that she was suffering.”
The Paivas begin the film comfortably middle-class, but Rubens’ disappearance plunges them into economic uncertainty. Without a death certificate (something Brazilian authorities took decades to grant the family), Eunice had no access to her family’s money and was forced to sell everything and start over. She went back to school and became a human rights lawyer.
“Her journey intertwined with Brazil’s journey as the country tried to redefine itself,” Salles says.
That journey continued throughout the seven tumultuous years as Salles worked on the script and then put the film together. It was a period when Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing aspiring strongman, won the presidency but lost office four years later in a close contest against Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In scenes eerily reminiscent of the January 6 riots, Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed Brazilian government buildings, radicalized by his claims of election fraud.
“We started this project with the idea that we were retelling a story from the past, but we came to realize that it was also a reflection on our present,” says Salles. “We have to remind ourselves of what happened. Film can be a powerful tool to counter these forces, to help us avoid oblivion. A country without memories is a country without a future. “
