SAO PAULO: Brazilian-made dramas rarely last long in local cinemas. But, nearly two months after its release, “I’m Still Here,” a film about a family torn apart by the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil for more than two decades, has drawn millions of moviegoers across the South American country.
The film’s domestic box office success — with nearly 3 million tickets sold, it secured the fifth spot at the 2024 box office by mid December — is rooted in its exploration of a long-neglected national trauma, but it is particularly timely, especially as Brazil confronts a recent near-miss with democratic rupture.
Set in the 1970s and based on true events, “I’m Still Here” tells the story of the Paivas, an upper-class family in Rio de Janeiro shattered by the dictatorship. Rubens Paiva, a former leftist congressman, was taken into custody by the military in 1971 and was never seen again. The narrative centers on his wife, Eunice Paiva, and her lifelong pursuit of justice.
The film was nominated for a Golden Globe for best foreign language film and shortlisted for the Oscars in the same category.
“Comedies and other topics are more likely to become mega-successes, but this (the dictatorship) is a very taboo subject for us,” said Brazilian psychoanalyst and writer Vera Iaconelli, adding that she felt a “sense of urgency” after watching the movie last month, even though the dictatorship ended almost four decades ago.
As the movie was being shown across Brazil, the Federal Police unsealed a report detailing a 2022 plot by military officers to stage a coup to prevent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from taking office, and to keep far-right former army captain Jair Bolsonaro in power. Bolsonaro and his allies have denied any involvement in participating or inciting a coup.
“Even if (director) Walter Salles wanted to plan the timing of the release this precisely, he wouldn’t have gotten it so right,” said Lucas Pedretti, a historian and sociologist whose works address memory and reparations after the military dictatorship.
“The film plays a very important role in telling us: ‘Look, this is what would happen if the coup that was planned by Bolsonaro and his military officers had succeeded.’”
Overdue reckoning
Unlike countries like Argentina and Chile, which established truth commissions and prosecuted former dictators and their henchmen, Brazil’s transition back to democracy was marked by a sweeping amnesty to military officials.
For years, said Pedretti, Brazil’s military promoted the notion that government silence was the best way to bury the past.
It was not until 2011 that Brazil’s then- President Dilma Rousseff — a former guerrilla who was tortured during the dictatorship — established a national truth commission to investigate its abuses.
The commission’s 2014 report detailed harrowing accounts of torture and named perpetrators of human rights violations — none were ever imprisoned. But just as a reckoning of the dictatorship began, calls for a return to military rule emerged in street protests against corruption revelations.
It was then that Marcelo Rubens Paiva, one of Rubens’ sons, decided to share his family’s story in his 2015 book “I’m Still Here.” The book introduced Eunice Paiva to a larger audience, chronicling her journey from a housewife to a relentless advocate for her disappeared husband, and how she raised five children by herself, while also pursuing a law degree.
In the years that followed, far-right, anti-establishment forces increasingly gained traction. Bolsonaro — who has long celebrated the coup and praised dictatorship-era torturers — would go on to ride that wave to a presidential victory in 2018.
A fragile memory
Observing the surge of the far-right in Brazil, filmmaker Salles realized the country’s memory of its dictatorship was very fragile. He said he saw a need for his country to confront its trauma in order to prevent history from repeating itself.
“I’m Still Here” isn’t the first Brazilian movie to explore the memory of the dictatorship, but it is the most popular. Unlike other films on the subject that tend to focus on dissidents and armed resistance, Salles chose to frame his as a family drama and how the disappearance of the family patriarch upended their day-to-day lives.