I’M STILL HERE Special Screenings

Based on true events and the bestselling memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva about his family, I’M STILL HERE – directed by Walter Salles – explores early 1970s Brazil, where the military dictatorship is tightening its grip on civil society. Eunice Paiva (Fernanda Torres), a middle-class mother of five, must reinvent her life after her activist husband Rubens (Selton Mello) disappears. Taken in for questioning by the secret police, Eunice endures interrogation and cruel mistreatment for more than a week before being released. She then begins the hard work of both protecting her family, and seeking justice for her husband and others persecuted by the Brazilian junta. Torres impresses as Eunice, who eventually became a lawyer and activist, and Salles sensitively portrays the contours of the family members’ experiences of personal and material loss in this deeply moving film which won the Best Screenplay Award at the Venice Film Festival and marks director Walter Salles’ first feature in more than a decade. –Todd Hitchcock