Director Walter Salles’s first feature film since 2012, the Oscar-nominated I’m Still Here is a return to home ground, and a return to strength, for the Brazilian auteur. At 68, Salles reconnects with his youth, telling a story in which he does not figure, but takes up the role of witness to the pain of others.
I’m Still Here is adapted from the autobiographical novel Ainda Estou Aqui by Salles’s contemporary, the writer Marcelo Rubens Paiva. The novel recounts Paiva’s father’s disappearance in 1971, under the repressive dictatorship of Emílio Garrastazu Médici, through the memories of the author’s mother, Eunice Paiva.
In Salles’s film, the Paivas lead an enchanted life in a house facing Leblon beach in Rio de Janeiro, until the long arm of the military regime wrecks their dream.
