I’m Still Here(2024)

Submitted by Julio M

(Ainda estou aqui)

Oscar Winner – Best International Film
Oscar Nominee – Best Actress (Fernanda Torres)
Oscar Nominee – Best Picture

Short pooper:
Rubens (Selton Mello) is officially acknowledged, in present times, as having disappeared and being murdered at the hands of the Military Regime, with no one ever prosecuted for it. His family receives the official Death Certificate and sees a televised news report confirming it. Eunice becomes a Lawyer and dedicates the rest of her life -until her death in 2018- to her practice and activism.

Longer version:
After enduring 12 days of forced imprisonment and questioning by torture, and witnessing the horrors anyone deemed -like herself and her family- an enemy of the Dictatorial Government was put through, Eunice (played as a younger woman by Fernanda Torres) is released. Her oldest daughter Eliana (Luiza Koslovsky) was also imprisoned, but released after only a single day. She has been emotionally scarred from the ordeal, but stays strong for the sake of her five children, since Rubens’ return does not seem to be in sight and no one provides an answer.

Despite the possibility of further consequences from her insistence in finding out of his whereabouts, Eunice meets some of Rubens’ former colleagues and riles them up to get the word of his disappearance and her own arrest out, which makes waves into the media. She is, in turn, informed that Rubens is not at the station where had been allegedly taken and, since no one has evidence of him being officially arrested, they refuse to take further action. In her search for a clue, Eunice becomes acquainted with her children’s school teacher Martha (Carla Ribas), who does admit seeing Rubens at the same place where she herself was held captive, but, out of fear, does not want to say anything else.

The family’s beloved dog, “Pimpao”, is run over and killed, and Eunice, suspecting it was done by the two Government henchmen looming over the house, angrily sends them off. Moreover, a disheartening break in her quest for the truth arrives in the form of a colleague, Felix (Humberto Corrao), giving the unofficial version of “Rubens’ death in combat”. Later, Eunice makes the decision of moving the whole family to Sao Paulo, closer to her immediate relatives, and to go back to school to become a Lawyer, which she eventually accomplishes.

Twenty-five years pass. In 1996, Brazil once again being a Democracy, Eunice -long since very active in her Law practice-, is summoned by a Court of Law related to the Commission of Truth, the organism created to make amends with the horrors and aftermath of the Dictatorship years, which she attends with her grownup children Marcelo (Antonio Saboia) and Babiu (Olívia Torres); it is here she is finally issued an official Death Certificate for the demise of Rubens. This, despite saddening her, allows her to have some sense of closure and she revisits the memories of old photographs and journal clips announcing his death.

Another 18 years pass. In 2014, an elderly, Alzheimer-stricken Eunice (now played by Fernanda Montenegro) is gathered with all her children and grandchildren, when a news part confirms the death of Rubens, along with many other political prisoners of the former Dictatorship, his body having never been found. This unlocks memories of Rubens in Eunice, who reacts emotionally. Everyone gets together for a photo with Eunice at the center of it, in a moment akin to the picture the whole family had, many years ago, while enjoying happier times at the beach.

The movie ends with title cards informing that no one was arrested or prosecuted for the murder of Rubens, and Eunice devoted the better part of her life to her work as a Lawyer and activist for people’s rights, until her death from Alzheimer complications in 2018, at the age of 89.