Brazil has selected Walter Salles’ well-received comeback feature I’m Still Here to represent it in the Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards.
The picture stars Fernanda Torres as the real-life figure of Eunice Paiva, whose husband Rubens Paiva disappeared in the early years of the 1964 to 1985 Brazilian military dictatorship.
It enjoyed a buzzy world premiere in Venice in Competition, receiving a 10-minute ovation and going on to win Best Screenplay for Heitor Lorega and Murilo Hauser.
The film has since made its North American premiere in Toronto and is playing in San Sebastian this week, with lots of awards season chatter in the backdrop.
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Sony Pictures Classics acquired North American rights and a raft of international territories on the film in Cannes.
In a process overseen by the Brazilian Cinema Academy, the film was selected from a short list of six films which also included Juliana Rojas’ Cicade Campo, Lillah Halla’s Power Alley, Karim Aïnouz’s Motel Destino, Haroldo Borges’s Bittersweet Rain and Nara Normande and Tião’s Heartless.
In a process overseen by the Brazilian Cinema Academy, the film was selected from a short list of six films which also included Juliana Rojas’ Cicade Campo, Lillah Halla’s Power Alley, Karim Aïnouz’s Motel Destino, Haroldo Borges’s Bittersweet Rain and Nara Normande and Tião’s Heartless.
“I am proud to chair this committee, which was unanimous in choosing this great film about memory, a moving portrait of a family under military dictatorship. I’m Still Here is a masterpiece, from the perspective of a woman, Eunice Paiva, and with sublime performances by the two Fernandas,” said Bárbara Paz, president of the Selection Committee.
“This is a historic moment for our cinema. I have no doubt that this film has a great chance of placing Brazil once again among the best in the world. We, in the Brazilian audiovisual industry, deserve this.”
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