Memory, Resistance, and the Ghosts of Brazil’s Dictatorship…
Few films in recent memory have so powerfully confronted the silence of history as I’m Still Here (Ainda Estou Aqui), the 2024 political biographical drama directed by Walter Salles. Adapted from Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s acclaimed 2015 memoir, the film tells the story of Eunice Paiva, a mother and human rights activist who faces the unthinkable — the disappearance of her husband, dissident politician Rubens Paiva, under Brazil’s military dictatorship.
![Marcelo Rubens Paiva (Brazilian Portuguese: [maʁˈsɛlu ˈʁubẽs ˈpajvɐ]; born 1 May 1959) is a Brazilian novelist, playwright, screenwriter and journalist born in São Paulo, Brazil. He is the son of Rubens Paiva, who was murdered during Brazil's military dictatorship in 1971. The impact of his father's disappearance on his family's life, especially on his mother, Eunice Paiva, is portrayed in his 2015 autobiography Ainda estou aqui, which served as the basis for the Oscar-winning 2024 film I'm Still Here.](https://i0.wp.com/moviestohistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Marcelo-Rubens-Paiva.jpg?ssl=1)
![Ainda Estou Aqui is a memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva. It was published on 4 August 2015 by Alfaguara, a subsidiary of the Brazilian publisher Companhia das Letras.[1][2][3][4] Synopsis The autobiographical work deals with the author's delicate relationship with his mother, Eunice, and is marked by the passage of time.[1] At the beginning, we follow Eunice Paiva in her old age and with signs of Alzheimer's disease.[5][6] Throughout, the reader discovers details about the author's childhood and family. Another subject addressed is his father, federal deputy Rubens Paiva.[7][8] Marcelo Paiva shows affection for his family and addresses the issues surrounding the military dictatorship in Brazil and his father's death.](https://i0.wp.com/moviestohistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Ainda-Estou-Aqui.jpg?ssl=1)
![Maria Lucrécia Eunice Facciolla Paiva (Brazilian Portuguese: [ewˈnisi ˈpajvɐ]), (November 7, 1929 – December 13, 2018) was a Brazilian lawyer and activist who challenged the Brazilian military dictatorship.[3][4][5] After Brazil's military dictatorship caused the disappearance of her husband, the former federal deputy Rubens Paiva, without a word as to his whereabouts, Eunice confronted a dire need to support herself and her children; she enrolled and graduated from the Faculty of Law at Mackenzie Presbyterian University, then built a career as a prominent advocate for the human rights of the victims of political repression, doggedly campaigned to open the military dictatorship's closed records, and then championed the rights of Brazil's indigenous peoples.](https://i0.wp.com/moviestohistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Eunice_Paiva.jpg?ssl=1)
![Rubens Beyrodt Paiva (Brazilian Portuguese: [ˈʁubẽs ˈpajvɐ]), (26 December 1929 – 21 January 1971)[2][3] was a Brazilian civil engineer and politician who, as a Congressman at the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies, opposed the implementation of the military dictatorship in Brazil in 1964. Due to his involvement with activities deemed subversive by the dictatorial regime, he was arrested by the military forces, tortured, and murdered.[4] As of 2025, his body has not been recovered.](https://i0.wp.com/moviestohistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Rubens-Paiva-.jpg?ssl=1)
![The military dictatorship in Brazil (Portuguese: ditadura militar [dʒitaˈduɾɐ miliˈtaʁ]), sometimes called the Fifth Brazilian Republic,[3][4] was established on 1 April 1964, after a coup d'état by the Brazilian Armed Forces with support from the United States government[5] against President João Goulart. It lasted 21 years, until 15 March 1985.[6] The coup was planned and executed by the seniormost commanders of the Brazilian Army and was supported by almost all high-ranking members of the military, along with conservative sectors in society, like the Catholic Church[7][8] and anti-communist civilian movements among the middle and upper classes. The military regime, particularly after the Institutional Act No. 5 of 1968, practiced extensive censorship and committed human rights abuses.[9] Those abuses included institutionalized torture, extrajudicial killings, and forced disappearances.[10][11] Despite initial pledges to the contrary, the regime enacted a new, restrictive Constitution in 1967, and stifled freedom of speech and political opposition. Its guidelines were nationalism, economic development, and anti-communism. The military coup of 1964 was supported by José de Magalhães Pinto, Adhemar de Barros, and Carlos Lacerda (who had already participated in the conspiracy to depose Getúlio Vargas in 1945), then governors of the states of Minas Gerais, São Paulo, and Guanabara, respectively. The U.S. State Department supported the coup through Operation Brother Sam and thereafter supported the regime through its embassy in Brasília.[6][5][12] The dictatorship reached the height of its popularity in the early 1970s with the so-called "Brazilian Miracle", even as it censored all media, and tortured, killed, and exiled dissidents. João Figueiredo became president in March 1979; the same year, he passed the Amnesty Law for political crimes committed for and against the regime. While combating "hardliners" inside the government and supporting a redemocratization policy, Figueiredo could not control the crumbling economy, chronic inflation, and concurrent fall of other South American military dictatorships. Amid massive popular demonstrations on the streets of Brazil's biggest cities, the first free elections in 20 years were held for the national legislature in 1982. In 1985, another election was held, this time to indirectly elect a new president, being contested between civilian candidates for the first time since the 1960s and won by the opposition. In 1988, a new Constitution passed and Brazil officially returned to democracy. Brazil's military government provided a model for other military regimes and dictatorships throughout Latin America, being systematized by the so-called "National Security Doctrine",[13] which was used to justify the military's actions as in the interest of national security in a time of crisis, a rationale upon which other military regimes relied.[13] In 2014, nearly 30 years after the regime collapsed, the Brazilian military recognized for the first time the excesses its agents committed during the dictatorship, including the torture and murder of political dissidents.[14] In 2018, the U.S. government released a 1974 memorandum written for Henry Kissinger when he was Secretary of State confirming that the Brazilian leadership was fully aware of the killing of dissidents.[15] It is estimated that 434 people were either confirmed killed or went missing and 20,000 people were tortured during Brazil's military dictatorship.[16] Some human rights activists and others assert that the figure could be much higher, and should include thousands of indigenous people who died because of the regime's negligence,[17][18][19] but the armed forces dispute this.](https://i0.wp.com/moviestohistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Brazils-Military-Dictatorship-.jpeg?ssl=1)
Played with aching intensity by Fernanda Torres, alongside Fernanda Montenegro (Torres’ real mother) as the elder Eunice, the film traces one woman’s private grief amid a nation’s collective trauma. Salles transforms this personal narrative into a larger meditation on truth, loss, and the persistence of memory in the face of state repression.
Premiering at the 81st Venice International Film Festival in September 2024, I’m Still Here drew unanimous acclaim — earning the Best Screenplay Award and widespread praise for Torres’s career-defining performance. The momentum continued through awards season: Golden Globe win for Best Actress, Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Actress, and a historic Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, making it the first Brazilian-produced film ever to win an Oscar.
![The 81st annual Venice International Film Festival was held from 28 August to 7 September 2024, at Venice Lido in Italy. French actress Isabelle Huppert served as Jury President for the main competition.[1] Italian actress and model Sveva Alviti hosted the opening and closing ceremonies.[2] The Golden Lion was awarded to The Room Next Door by Pedro Almodóvar.[3] Australian filmmaker Peter Weir and American actress Sigourney Weaver received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement during the festival.[4][5] The festival opened with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice by Tim Burton,[6] and closed with The American Backyard by Pupi Avati.](https://i0.wp.com/moviestohistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/81st-Venice-International-Film-Festival.jpg?ssl=1)
But in Brazil, the story didn’t end at the red carpet. Upon its release in November 2024, I’m Still Here became the target of a far-right boycott by groups denying that the military regime was a dictatorship — a stark reminder that the wounds of history remain open. Yet the film triumphed, grossing $36 million to become the highest-grossing Brazilian film since the COVID-19 pandemic, proving that audiences were ready to confront this chapter of their past.
At MoviesToHistory.com, we’ll explore the true story behind I’m Still Here: the real Eunice and Rubens Paiva, the brutal machinery of Brazil’s military regime, and how Walter Salles transforms remembrance into cinematic resistance.
![The military dictatorship in Brazil (Portuguese: ditadura militar [dʒitaˈduɾɐ miliˈtaʁ]), sometimes called the Fifth Brazilian Republic,[3][4] was established on 1 April 1964, after a coup d'état by the Brazilian Armed Forces with support from the United States government[5] against President João Goulart. It lasted 21 years, until 15 March 1985.[6] The coup was planned and executed by the seniormost commanders of the Brazilian Army and was supported by almost all high-ranking members of the military, along with conservative sectors in society, like the Catholic Church[7][8] and anti-communist civilian movements among the middle and upper classes. The military regime, particularly after the Institutional Act No. 5 of 1968, practiced extensive censorship and committed human rights abuses.[9] Those abuses included institutionalized torture, extrajudicial killings, and forced disappearances.[10][11] Despite initial pledges to the contrary, the regime enacted a new, restrictive Constitution in 1967, and stifled freedom of speech and political opposition. Its guidelines were nationalism, economic development, and anti-communism. The military coup of 1964 was supported by José de Magalhães Pinto, Adhemar de Barros, and Carlos Lacerda (who had already participated in the conspiracy to depose Getúlio Vargas in 1945), then governors of the states of Minas Gerais, São Paulo, and Guanabara, respectively. The U.S. State Department supported the coup through Operation Brother Sam and thereafter supported the regime through its embassy in Brasília.[6][5][12] The dictatorship reached the height of its popularity in the early 1970s with the so-called "Brazilian Miracle", even as it censored all media, and tortured, killed, and exiled dissidents. João Figueiredo became president in March 1979; the same year, he passed the Amnesty Law for political crimes committed for and against the regime. While combating "hardliners" inside the government and supporting a redemocratization policy, Figueiredo could not control the crumbling economy, chronic inflation, and concurrent fall of other South American military dictatorships. Amid massive popular demonstrations on the streets of Brazil's biggest cities, the first free elections in 20 years were held for the national legislature in 1982. In 1985, another election was held, this time to indirectly elect a new president, being contested between civilian candidates for the first time since the 1960s and won by the opposition. In 1988, a new Constitution passed and Brazil officially returned to democracy. Brazil's military government provided a model for other military regimes and dictatorships throughout Latin America, being systematized by the so-called "National Security Doctrine",[13] which was used to justify the military's actions as in the interest of national security in a time of crisis, a rationale upon which other military regimes relied.[13] In 2014, nearly 30 years after the regime collapsed, the Brazilian military recognized for the first time the excesses its agents committed during the dictatorship, including the torture and murder of political dissidents.[14] In 2018, the U.S. government released a 1974 memorandum written for Henry Kissinger when he was Secretary of State confirming that the Brazilian leadership was fully aware of the killing of dissidents.[15] It is estimated that 434 people were either confirmed killed or went missing and 20,000 people were tortured during Brazil's military dictatorship.[16] Some human rights activists and others assert that the figure could be much higher, and should include thousands of indigenous people who died because of the regime's negligence,[17][18][19] but the armed forces dispute this.](https://i0.wp.com/moviestohistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Brazils-Military-Dictatorship-1024x683.jpg?ssl=1)
I’m Still Here is the is the Featured Film Blog of the month for October, for its theme of Faith, State & Performance — when belief and power decide what “truth” looks like, you can expect to read a critique of the 2024 film that looks at the real story behind Eunice Paiva. You can also read a recommendation for the film that looks at Faith Under Pressure: How Film & TV Frame Religious Extremism. There is also a review of the film that looks at the memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva that inspired Salles’s adaption, Ainda Estou Aqui (2015). For the interview, Fernanda Torres and Selton Mello go in-depth about the making of I’m Still Here. There is also a Top Ten List to commemorate the film being a Featured Film Blog of the month, and for I’m Still Here, the topic of the list is My Top Ten International Movies. And finally, as a Featured Film Blog of the month, you can watch the Official Trailer for I’m Still Here, and then plan on watching it tonight!
SCROLL DOWN AND WATCH THE OFFICIAL TRAILER!
I’m Still Here is available now on Netflix…
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