When creating the story of “I’m Still Here,” which chronicles the enforced disappearance of a husband and father during the military dictatorship in Brazil, filmmaker Walter Salles didn’t have to imagine much: Salles grew up in Rio de Janeiro. close with the man’s family. “I had a very personal connection to the story,” he told TheWrap editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman. “When I was 13 years old, I felt this family at the heart of the film.”
That family is the Paivas. In 1971, the regime in power from 1964 to 1985 arrested Patriarch Rubens Pavia in his home on suspicion of political dissent. His loved ones never saw him again. In the film, which is Brazil’s Oscar entry for international elementFernanda Torres plays Ruben’s wife, Eunice Pavia, a formidable woman who became a human rights lawyer and dedicated her life to uncovering what happened to her husband (played by Selton Mello). She did not receive his death certificate until 1996; only in 2014 did a government report confirm that Rubens was one of hundreds of citizens who had been murdered by the regime.
The screenplay, by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega, is based on the 2015 memoir (“Ainda Estou Aqui”) written by Rubens and Eunice’s son, Marcelo Rubens Paiva. He was one of five children who grew up in the Paiva house in Rio de Janeiro – a warm, welcoming bastion of culture and intellectual curiosity in Ipanema that Salles remembers vividly.
“I became very good friends with the middle sister of the five kids, and I fell in love with the family,” he said during a discussion after a screening of “I’m Still Here” that was part of TheWrap Screening Series at the Ojai Playhouse on Friday . “I was delighted by their passion for life, by the fact that in this house, in the middle of a dictatorship, there was freedom of thought. You can discuss politics. You can discuss culture. There was music playing all the time. … It was the reverse angle of what a military dictatorship stands for, which is censorship, the lack of opportunity to express oneself.”
Even if Torres — who just days before had won one Golden Globe for her performance – not knowing Paivas personally, the film resonated deeply with her. Daughter of the famous actress Fernanda Montenegro and the actor-producer-director Fernando Torres, she too grew up in an artistic environment in Rio de Janeiro during the dictatorship. “My house was just like this,” she said, adding that censors were always ogling her parents’ plays, cutting the content or shutting them down entirely. “And I remember we were always afraid of the police. … Everyone got caught. (“I’m Still Here” producer) Daniela Thomas, who works with us, her father is a very famous cartoonist. He was caught just like Rubens, for three months. Everyone was taken. Everyone was terrified.”
The discussion took place in Ojai as forest fires continued to rage through Los Angeles. Torres said she and Salles had been debating whether it was appropriate to talk about their film when tragedy unfolded around them. “And he said to me, ‘No, maybe this movie, it’s a good message because this is a woman reinventing herself and becoming herself after a tragedy,'” she said. “And her choice not to tell her children what happened to their (father) … I think that by doing this she preserved the innocence of those children. Today I saw some children on television grabbing some new toys and talking about the toys they lost. So I think this whole reconstruction process… This woman has this power to face a tragedy, to reinvent herself. So it’s a damn good character for now, I think.”
Torres and Salles also spoke about how “I’m Still Here” relates to today’s Brazil. After the film’s premiere in Brazil in November, a police report revealed a plot by former president Jair Bolsonaro to kill the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in a military coup.
“When we started adapting the script,” Salles said, “we realized that the zeitgeist was changing. The extreme right was emerging in Brazil, just like in so many different parts of the world. And we realized that the film was not only about our past, but also about our present time. And this actually structured the film in a way. Everyone became very aware that the film was not only about who we had been, but who we eventually wanted to be. It was a film about an identity in motion, you know. And again, this, I think, gave us a focus and a sense of urgency to the film.”
The production of “I’m Still Here” took place in a house that Salles described as the “Xerox copy” of Paiva’s home. There he encouraged his cast – many of whom were just starting their acting careers – to inhabit their characters: they cooked together, decorated their bedrooms and improvised scenes of secrecy. “When I first saw the movie, I was shocked because we didn’t look like actors,” Torres said. “Walter is a documentarian. … And in this film, everything is there. It’s filming, but with the feel of a documentary. It was wonderful.”
The casting of a character who appears in the film’s final moments added another personal dimension to “I’m Still Here.” In a touching coda, Torres’ mother, Montenegro, plays Eunice as an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s, her memory largely gone but her family still rallying around her. Montenegro was nominated for an Oscar in 1999 for Salle’s “Central Station,” so her performance here is rich with meaning.
“It wasn’t CGI,” Torres joked.
To which Salles replied: “How lucky I was to have the two Fernandos in one film!”
