Best Picture Nominee: I'm Still Here

Summary

Podcast Summary: All Of It – Best Picture Nominee: I'm Still Here

Podcast Information

• Title: All Of It
• Host: Alison Stewart
• Producer: WNYC
• Episode Title: Best Picture Nominee: I'm Still Here
• Release Date: February 17, 2025
• Description: All Of It explores culture and its consumers, engaging thinkers, doers, makers, and creators to delve into the what and why of their work. The show emphasizes the diversity and varied perspectives that contribute to the vibrant culture of New York City.

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Introduction to "I'm Still Here"

In this episode of All Of It, host Alison Stewart delves into the Academy Awards' Best Picture category, spotlighting the first-ever Brazilian film to receive a nomination: I'm Still Here. This film not only garnered recognition for Best Picture but also for Best International Feature, and its lead actress, Fernanda Torres, was nominated for Best Actress.

Alison Stewart [00:20]:

"I'm Still Here is based on the true tragic story of the Paiva family. It's 1970s Brazil, and they live in a beautiful house right on the beach..."

I'm Still Here portrays the harrowing experiences of Eunice Paiva and her family under Brazil's military dictatorship. The narrative follows Eunice's relentless quest to uncover the fate of her husband, Rubens, who mysteriously disappears amidst political turmoil.

Conversation with Director Walter Salas

Alison Stewart welcomes director Walter Salas, who shares his personal connection to the story.

Walter Salas [02:23]:

"I was not only friends with them, but enamored by that family. At the heart of the film, there was so much life in that house they rented..."

Salas elaborates on the vibrant household he knew, filled with political discussions and Brazilian music that was censored during the dictatorship. The family's resilience and joy in the face of oppression inspired him to bring their story to the screen, especially after Marcelo Paiva, the second youngest child, penned a poignant book in 2015 that rekindled his interest.

Walter Salas [03:31]:

"I always stayed with it inside. And then in 2015, the second youngest kid in the family wrote an extraordinary book called I'm Still Here..."

Salas emphasizes the meticulous seven-year process to honor both his memories and Marcelo’s narrative, ensuring the film captured the multifaceted nature of the family's ordeal.

Insights from Actress Fernanda Torres

Fernanda Torres, who plays Eunice Paiva, discusses her journey into the role and her connection to the Paiva family.

Fernanda Torres [03:43]:

"I think in the first book that Marcelo wrote... the first contact I had with Eunice Paiva was through the first book of Marcelo."

Torres recounts how initial readings provided a glimpse into Eunice's life as a devoted wife and mother, but it was through the film that she fully understood Eunice's transformation into a fierce human rights defender.

Fernanda Torres [04:45]:

"It's someone who was raised to be the perfect housewife from the 50s... she became a lawyer and a great defender of human rights. It's a hell of a woman."

Torres highlights Eunice's metamorphosis from a traditional homemaker to a resilient advocate, underscoring the character's depth and strength in navigating personal and political tragedies.

Filmmaking Techniques and Family Dynamics

Stewart probes into the challenges of portraying a family with five children and integrating Torres's real-life relationship with her mother into the film.

Walter Salas [11:18]:

"The screenplay does a wonderful job in defining each one of those kids rapidly... we shot in chronological order, which helps tremendously with children."

Salas discusses the strategic decisions made to develop each child's character swiftly and authentically, including shooting scenes in chronological order and creating prequel scenes to establish familial bonds.

Fernanda Torres [12:48]:

"I remember in the beginning I had difficulty even remembering the names of the kids... by the end of the movie, they were like my children."

Torres shares her experience working with the ensemble cast, particularly the young actors, and the emotional connection she formed with them, likening the process to maternal instincts.

Cinematography and Narrative Structure

The episode delves into the film's visual storytelling and the symbolic use of space and movement to reflect the oppressive atmosphere of the dictatorship.

Walter Salas [07:13]:

"The constant interaction between the light of the tropics... is what interrupted when the military police enters in that house."

Salas explains how the initial vibrant and fluid camera movements symbolize the family's lively existence, which starkly contrasts with the sudden intrusion of military force, leading to a more subdued and static visual narrative.

Walter Salas [10:16]:

"The kids don't know what's happening, so they're just coming and going... the camera also stands still."

This shift in cinematography underscores the pervasive tension and the family's gradual realization of their precarious situation, enhancing the audience's immersion into their subjective experiences.

Personal and Artistic Connections

Torres reflects on acting alongside her mother and the enduring legacy of the Paiva family's story.

Fernanda Torres [13:48]:

"Me and my mother, we are like the Fernandez... we managed to exist and to produce wonderful directors like Walter Salas..."

Torres emphasizes the intergenerational impact of the family's resilience and the role of art in preserving and honoring their legacy amidst political and economic challenges.

Conclusion

The episode wraps up with Stewart summarizing the profound contributions of I'm Still Here to Brazilian cinema and its poignant portrayal of a family's struggle under dictatorship. Through intimate conversations with director Walter Salas and actress Fernanda Torres, listeners gain a deep appreciation for the film's emotional depth, historical significance, and artistic craftsmanship.

Alison Stewart [14:47]:

"That was my conversation about the best picture nominated film. I'm still here with director Walter Salas and actor Fernanda Torres."

Final Notes

I'm Still Here is set to debut in theaters on January 17th, following its screenings at the Lincoln Center Festival and MoMA. The film stands as a testament to the enduring human spirit and the power of storytelling in the face of adversity.

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Credits: Produced by Andrea Duncan Mao, Kate Hines, Jordan Loff, Simon Close, El Malik Anderson, and Luke Green. Engineering by Juliana Fonda and Jason Isaac. Music by Luscious Jackson.

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Availability: Missed this episode? Listen to All Of It on your preferred podcast platform. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave a rating to support the show.

Transcript

[Alison Stewart]

Listener support, WNYC Studios.

This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart.

We've been talking about some of the.

Films nominated for Best Picture at this year's Academy Awards. And we'll close out our show today with a look at the first ever Brazilian film to be nominated in that category. It's called I'm Still Here. And in addition to Best picture, it's up for Best International Feature. And its star, Fernanda Torres, is up for Best actress. So let's get into my conversation with director Walter Salas and actor Fernanda Torres.

If you tuned into the Golden Globes, you saw my next guest take home a statue Fernanda Torres won for her role in the Brazilian film I'm Still Here. As fellow nominees like Nicole Kidman and Kate Winslet applauded. If you had a chance to see the film, you know how well deserved that win is. I'm Still Here is based on the true tragic story of the paiva family. It's 1970s Brazil, and they live in a beautiful house right on the beach. Eunice and her husband Rubens are in love, and they are devoted parents to five kids. But still, this is Brazil, and the country is in the grips of a military dictatorship. And one morning, mysterious men turn up at the house and demand that Rubens come for a deposition. The next night, they come for Eunice and her daughter Elenia. And though Eunice and her daughter are finally returned home, her husband remains missing. The film focuses on Eunice's fight to find out what has happened to her husband and her attempts to protect her family through terrifying unknowns. I'm Still Here is directed by Walter Salas, who grew up with the Piva family. It's his first feature film since 2012. Now, some of you may have seen the film at Lincoln Center Festival or MoMA, but it will be in theaters starting January 17th. I'm joined now by director Walter Salas. Hi, Walter.

Hi, Alison. I'm very happy to be here.

So happy to have you all as well. And newly minted Golden Globe winner Fernanda Torres. Nice to meet you, Fernanda.

[Fernanda Torres]

Hi, Alison. Thank you for having us.

[Alison Stewart]

So, Walter, you were friends with the Paiva children growing up. How did you decide you wanted to tell their story?

Yes. You know, I was not only friends with them, but enamored by that family. At the heart of the film, there was so much life in that house they rented. You know, imagine five kids were their friends. Father and mother were with their friends as well. So it was a house full of life. There was a lot of political discussions roaming around that place. Music, Brazilian music that was censored at the time, that was playing constantly. And it's that joy, you know, that possibility to resist with joy that was robbed when the father was taken for the position. So this story always. I always stayed with it inside. And then in 2015, the second youngest kid in the family wrote an extraordinary book called I'm Still Here on his. On the memory of his family. And at the same time, he offered the possibility to see a reflection of the country during the decades of the military dictatorship. And this is when the film became a reality.

First of all, though, the music in the film is mwah. It's the party scenes. Fernanda, when did you first become aware of the Paiva family?

[Fernanda Torres]

I think in the first book that Marcelo wrote when he. He had an accident when he was like 20 years old, and he lost the movements from neck down. And he wrote this amazing book about his recovery. And we all knew that he had lost his father during the dictatorship, but that was just the headline. We never knew. So the first contact I had with Eunice Paiva was through the first book of Marcelo. And for me, she was the widow of humans and the mother of Marcelo. I. I think I just discovered the oniss in the second book, in this second book about their lives. And then through the film, that's when I. I think I had like a deep grip of what an amazing woman she is.

[Alison Stewart]

I was going to say you said the wife, the mother of, but there was a lot more to her than just that. How would you describe her?

[Fernanda Torres]

It's someone who was raised to be the perfect housewife from the 50s. Not a silly one, an intellectual one, but the great woman behind a great man. And what is interesting in her character is that she suffers a huge tragedy. I mean, her husband is killing, killed, tortured, and she couldn't even bury the body. They disappear with the body. With five children and a woman that, when she was facing tragedy, was when she started to found herself as the true Eunice. So is someone that said goodbye to utopia and reinvented herself in a very tough moment. And this, I think it's a good tale to everyone nowadays. I mean, to face reality with a smile and be brave. And then she became a lawyer and a great defender of the human rights. It's a hell of a woman.

[Alison Stewart]

Walter, what kind of conversations did you have with the Paiva family? What concerns did they have? What concerns did you have?

Yeah, it's a good question, because how do you make justice to your own memories, you know, from what you remember, but also to all the layers of the story that Marcelo had offered us in his book. You know, I think that the. The way to do this was to stay very close to Marcelo throughout the whole process and. And also to interview every single person who was connected to this story in a way, in another. His. His four sisters and the friends of the family. And this is what took us seven years, you know, to really reach a screenplay that. That somehow, you know, embraced the story in all its facets.

I.

It took a while. It. I. I never took as long, you know, to. To do a film, to tell you the truth, but here there was. There was so much to make justice to Walter.

You begin the movie. The family's on the beach. They're having a great day. It's disrupted when the older daughter is stopped. She's frisked by police. What do those opening scenes tell us about what life was like in Brazil during this period?

Yeah, you know, I always say that we could not be completely innocent at that time, even when we were 13, because the first image is of this woman in. In the water. And yet in the same frame, there's a military helicopter flying too low, and you could be in a car, but be interrupted, you know, be stopped by a roadblock, and. And where different forms of violence could take. Could enter into. Into play, you know, so this. This constant, I would say, interaction between the light of the tropics. But, you know, the danger of the regime at that point is one that really defines the whole first part of the film. There was always something that could be lost, you know, and I think we were aware of it, yet we tried to survive that moment by living, by making life, by embracing life as a form of resistance. This was it. But then there's a moment where it's not possible anymore in that house that you just referred to. The house that is truly a character of the film.

I wondered about the house, Walter, sort of the choreography of the. The disappearance, the kidnapping, because the kids are coming in and out. It's happening. Eunice has got a smile on her face during it. What was that choreography like? And you can jump in, too, Fernando.

You know, the very beginning of the film really corresponds to the memory I have of the house where there was a sense of immediacy, almost a tactile quality. You know, the. The people intermingled, so the camera is very mobile at the very beginning. You know, it's very fluid and very organic, and it just drifts from group to group of people. And as music is written, the whole thing, you know, it's. It's. It. There's a vitality that. That exists in that house that is almost like the reverse angle of the dictatorship itself, you know? And that movement, that possibility of being in the world is what is interrupted when the military police enters in that house. And from that moment on, what you have is subtraction. Subtraction of light because the windows are shut. Subtraction of movement because you can't move anymore from one place to another. You just stand. And then there's something that is also affected is language itself. Because in a dictatorship, you cannot speak freely, you know, and the kids.

The kids don't know what's happening, so they're just coming and going. They're very free to move. Yes, Everyone else is frozen.

And then at a certain point, when they realize they also have to deal with it. And then the narrative becomes much more subjective because they have to look at each other's eyes to understand what's going on. And. And that movement that. That defines the beginning of the film is halted. And the camera also stands still. And it's almost like a body that ceases to move, you know. And that was very interesting to actually articulate the film. Think about the film in which the. The grammar of the 30 minutes, the initial 30 minutes, would be completely different from the grammar, from that, you know, the moment the father's taken on.

When you had five kids, five individual children and a dog, how did you want to give them each to have their own moment? And was it difficult with that many young actors?

You know, first, the screenplay does a really wonderful job in defining each one of those kids rapidly. You know, they have the one scene that truly takes care of understanding who they are. But. But we also did two. Two other things. We. We shot in chronological order, which helps tremendously with children. And we also rehearsed what would be the prequel of the. We created scenes that. That, you know, that could have happened before the beginning of the film with the family. We occupied that house. We stayed in that house for weeks. And. And we. We somehow created a texture in that family that truly existed before we started to shoot. And that, I think, we. Is a result of what I had done in Central Station, the film I shot with Fernanda's mother exactly 25 years ago, in which I had, on one hand, a young kid who had never acted, and the most extraordinary actress in Brazilian cinema, Fernanda's mother. And to blend that, we also make, you know, did spend time together and created texture between the characters. And we did the exact same thing here.

Fernanda, your mother makes.

[Fernanda Torres]

I remember in the beginning I had difficult even by remembering the names of the kids. Was too many kids, too many nicknames. And by the end of the movie, they were like my children. I had no doubts of who is who in this family. And with each one of them, the two kids brought us like freedom. I mean, they were so spontaneous, they were just playing. And the other actresses, they reminded me so much. I saw myself in them. I mean, we're doing a film with Valta Salis, an amazing script, an amazing story for the first time. And so I created really a very maternal feeling to each one of them.

[Alison Stewart]

I don't want to give anything away, but your mother is in the film as well. What was it like to have her be a part of the film?

[Fernanda Torres]

I mean, me and my mother, we are like the Fernandez. We're like entity in Brazil. We exist separately, but there is also the Fernandez entity. And we are in the movie. And her presence, I think together with the fact that Eunice Paiva raised Marcelo Rubens Paiva that one day would write her story. It means that's what I find it so meaningful that art has endured in me and my mother in Marcelo and Eunice, that besides the dictatorship, the right, right right wing government, the economical crisis, we managed to exist and to produce wonderful director like Walter Salis, who once in a while saves Brazilian cinema.

[Alison Stewart]

That was my conversation about the best picture nominated film. I'm still here with director Walter Salas and actor Fernanda Torres.

And that is all of it for today. All of it is produced by Andrea Duncan Mao, Kate Hines, Jordan Loff, Simon Close, El Malik Anderson and Luke Green. Megan Ryan is ahead of Live Radio. Our engineers are Juliana Fonda and Jason Isaac. Luscious Jackson does our music. If you missed any of these segments this week, catch up by listening to our podcast, available on your podcast platform of choice. If you like what you hear, please leave us a great rating. I'm Alison Stewart. I appreciate you listening and I appreciate you and I will meet you back here next time.