I'm Still Here

Nominated for best picture as well as best actress, I’m Still Here marks the welcome return to the director’s chair for Walter Salles, the creator of The Motorcycle Diaries and On the Road. I’m Still Here is the story of the Paivas family – five kids, and their parents – living an idyllic life, but with storm clouds gathering in 1970s Brazil. Father Rubens is a relatively small fish political activist, but that does not protect him from being taken for questioning, a questioning that becomes an abduction and reveals the true face of the authoritarian regime.

Salles’s talent is in the balance between domestic and the grandly political. The impact of Rubens’ disappearance is felt as the kind of genuine personal loss rather than a statistical fact, with detail given to the entire family’s experiences of this rupture. Highly feted since its debut at the Venice Film Festival, this is one of the award season’s most memorable titles, with a rightly nominated lead performance from Fernanda Torres as the family matriarch.