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What Is *I’m Still Here* About? Love and Memory in Walter Salles’s Film

Walter Salles’s *I’m Still Here* follows Eunice Paiva’s search for truth after her husband disappears under Brazil’s military dictatorship, and the family life that persists around that loss.
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I’m Still Here is Walter Salles’s 2024 film about Eunice Paiva and her five children, whose family life is shattered when Brazilian authorities take her husband, Rubens, in 1971 and he disappears. Adapted from her son Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s memoir, the film follows Eunice’s search for truth and the family’s effort to keep living. Its account of love and resilience does not soften the violence or offer a substitute for justice.

What is I’m Still Here about?

Set in Brazil in 1971, as the military dictatorship tightens its grip, the film begins when authorities take Rubens Paiva from his Rio de Janeiro home under the pretext of a deposition. He does not return. Eunice, his wife and a mother of five, is left to care for their children while trying to learn what happened to him. Film at Lincoln Center describes Rubens as a former congressman and outspoken critic of the dictatorship, and Eunice’s search for truth as one that continues for decades (Film at Lincoln Center).

The story’s center is not only the disappearance, but the lives forced to continue around it: a mother finding a way forward, children growing up with an absence, and a family holding on to memory. The film’s intimate perspective makes the political violence personal without suggesting that love can erase it.

Is I’m Still Here based on a true story?

Yes. The film adapts Ainda Estou Aqui, the biographical book by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, one of Eunice and Rubens’s children. Sony Pictures Classics identifies the memoir as the film’s source, as do the Venice Biennale and Film at Lincoln Center (Sony Pictures Classics; La Biennale di Venezia).

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Director Walter Salles said he knew the Paiva family and was friends with the children, making the story personal to him. In his Venice director’s statement, he described Eunice’s experience as both “the story of how to live through loss and a mirror of the wound left on a nation” (La Biennale di Venezia). That framing captures the film’s two scales: one family’s grief and a country’s unresolved memory of state violence.

Who was Eunice Paiva?

Eunice Paiva was the wife of Rubens Paiva and the mother of their five children. In the film, she is not simply a figure waiting for answers: she searches for her husband and faces the practical, emotional, and political demands of building a life for her family in his absence. The story stays close to the people left behind, a choice Salles emphasized in describing the film’s point of view.

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Fernanda Torres plays Eunice during the central years of the story; Fernanda Montenegro appears as Eunice later in life, according to Film at Lincoln Center. Selton Mello plays Rubens. The cast and credits are listed by Sony Pictures Classics (Film at Lincoln Center; Sony Pictures Classics).

What happened to Rubens Paiva?

Rubens was taken by government authorities in 1971 and disappeared. The film depicts the rupture this creates in the Paiva household and Eunice’s long effort to establish the truth. The disappearance is not a narrative obstacle that the family’s affection simply overcomes; it is the unresolved violence around which their lives must be remade.

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The film’s language of survival is therefore deliberately different from a tidy redemption story. Speaking after the film’s 2025 Academy Award win, Salles said Eunice “had the possibility to bend or to embrace life, and did embrace life.” Torres described the family’s smile as “a kind of resistance,” as reported by the Associated Press (Associated Press). Such moments point to persistence and shared life; they do not undo Rubens’s disappearance or stand in for accountability.

What book is the film based on?

The source is Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s Ainda Estou Aqui. The film’s official and festival listings identify the book as its basis. If you want to read it, check the language and edition carefully: the sources cited here establish the memoir’s identity, but do not establish a current English translation, a particular retail edition, or its availability in your country (Sony Pictures Classics; La Biennale di Venezia).

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Where can I watch I’m Still Here?

Viewing availability changes by country and over time, so there is no single reliable service recommendation here. Sony Pictures Classics provides an official “Watch Now” route on its title page; check that page and the services available in your region for current options (Sony Pictures Classics).

Film details and recognition

  • Original title: Ainda Estou Aqui; English release title: I’m Still Here.
  • Year and director: 2024, directed by Walter Salles; screenplay by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega.
  • Language: Portuguese. Film at Lincoln Center specified English subtitles for its NYFF listing.
  • Runtime: about 135 minutes; the Venice Biennale and Film at Lincoln Center list 135 minutes, while the Brazilian Cinema Academy lists 136 minutes.
  • Award: the film won the 2025 Academy Award for International Feature Film. The Associated Press reported that it was Brazil’s first win in the category.

These credits and runtime details come from the Venice Biennale, Film at Lincoln Center, and Brazilian Cinema Academy. The award and its historical significance were reported by the Associated Press.

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