The biggest surprise of this year’s Oscar nominations has got to be Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here” which is nominated for Best Picture, Best Actress (Fernanda Torres) and Best international Film. The reach of “I'm Still Here,” produced in Brazil, has transcended barriers.
Rodrigo Teixeira, one of the film's producers, is now telling the Dois Pontos podcast that none other than Martin Scorsese wrote an email to Salles after seeing the film. Predictably, Scorsese was gushing about “I’m Still Here” which he loved.
The producer went on to mention that other filmmakers, such as Alfonso Cuarón (“Children of Men”) and Olivier Assayas (“Personal Shopper”) also tolreached out to Salles, telling him how much the film moved them — Cuarón, according to Teixeira, had a "lump in his throat" during his call with Salles.
Based on a true story, "I'm Still Here" portrays the harrowing experience of Eunice Paiva (Torres), whose husband, former congressman Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), was forcibly captured by Brazil's military dictatorship in the early 1970s, and then disappeared. The film tackles the family’s distress, particularly Eunice who tries to find out the mystery underlying her husband's fate while raising their five children.
The film, which premiered last September at the Venice Film Festival, has garnered critical acclaim (85 on Metacritic) and quite clearly the affection of Academy voters. In fact, I just sent out my Oscar predictions to Sasha Stone’s Gate Crashers with Fernanda Torres as my predicted winner for Best Actress.
It’s a risky bet on my part to predict Torres in a race that is supposed to be between Demi Moore (“The Substance”) and Mikey Madison (“Anora”), but my gut tells me that Torres, who has been showered with overwhelming love ever since the nomination, will pull off the upset.
As someone who was engrossed by the first 90 minutes of “I’m Still Here,” but felt that the final stretch was weak and manipulative, I won’t further chime in on this one — I seem to be in the minority. Have some our readers seen the film? It’s the only one of the 10 Best Picture nominees that’s still not available on VOD.