Brazil’s Oscar Win for ‘I’m Still Here’ Just Made for the Craziest Carnival Ever – Hollywood Reporter
Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood ReporterSubscribe for full access to The Hollywood ReporterThe best international feature Academy Award for Walter Salles’ timely drama backdropped the annual celebrations and validated a political movement: “It’s hard to put into words just how big of a moment this is.”
By
Steven Zeitchik
Senior Editor, Awards
Carnival celebrations were raging across Rio on Sunday night when everyone stopped.
The Oscar for best international feature was about to be announced from Hollywood, and all eyes were fixed on whether the country or anyone associated with it could win its first Oscar. I’m Still Here, Walter Salles’ drama set during Brazil’s two-decade military dictatorship that ended in 1985, was nominated for the international prize as well as two others.
The festivities had already been shot through with Academy Awards. People danced around elétricos, music-blaring floats, joyous over the movie’s recognition 6,000 miles north. Some creative types had even taken the Boneco de Olinda, a giant traditional puppet often seen during Carnival, and tricked it out to depict star Fernanda Torres holding an awards statue. This was possibly the biggest, and certainly the coolest, Oscar watch party ever convened.
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And so when Penélope Cruz read the name I’m Still Here from the stage of the Dolby a little before midnight, the Carnival crowds erupted. Some watched on giant televisions as Salles hugged Torres and James Mangold then took the stage. Others caught the news online. And in a transcendent moment, Daniela Mercury, the Brazilian music icon and Latin Grammy winner, stood atop her elétrico and broke the news to the crowd, which went wild.
Ainda Estou Aqui had already been a sensation in Brazil long before the Oscar attention, selling more than 5 million tickets and sparking conversation and catharsis across the nation of 210 million. Supreme Court justices in cases that seek to hold far-right elements to account have cited it; government agencies have changes rules around death certificates because of it.
But the interest from the Academy was another matter. A trauma too long swept under the rug was being feted by one from the most prominent entertainment bodies in the world — a beautifully ironic reversal of fortune.
And it was all coming via Salles, a native son and Latin America’s go-to cinematic chronicler, as well as Torres, who as the daughter of Fernanda Montenegro is acting royalty and a performing legend in her own right. There was even hope that Torres, who had staged an upset at the Golden Globes, could win the Oscar over Demi Moore and Mikey Madison.
“It’s hard to put into words just how big of a moment this is,” emailed Bruna Santos, director of the Brazil institute at the independent Washington, D.C., think thank The Wilson Center and former vice president of the National School of Public Administration in Brazil. “It’s a defining moment, not just for Brazilian film, but for the country’s ongoing reckoning with its past.”
Rafael Ioris, a Latin American expert at the University of Denver and author of the influential political history Transforming Brazil, put it even more pithily in a message to THR.
“A historic night,” he wrote.
The fact-based movie centers on a tragedy that befalls Eunice Paiva, the wife of a liberal congressman who is abducted by the military authorities, and her subsequent attempts at justice. The depiction of Paiva’s years-long crusade has given hope to people in Brazil and beyond as they deal with a surge in far-right politics; Brazil itself saw an attempted coup by former far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro in 2023.
The movie’s place on the Oscars‘ stage only turbocharged their efforts.
“This goes to a woman who, after a loss suffered during an authoritarian regime, decided not to bend, and to resist,” Salles said from the Dolby, implicitly making the case for people to follow her lead anywhere authoritarianism reared its head.
The I’m Still Here developments underscore the global power of the new and more internationally minded Academy. By choosing films far from Hollywood, some fear the organization overlooks the dominant U.S. industry. But those choices also do something else: anoint and give life to industries around the world. Such is the hope in Brazil, where experts say the country needs stronger government funding if it hopes to sustain a rich film culture.
The Brazil reactions follow similar joy in Riga after the animation win for its indie environmental parable Flow. The Latvian capital has been in a state of euphoria since Flow started getting Oscar attention, with city signs even modified to pay homage to the film. The country’s president, Edgars Rinkēvičs, posted on X on Monday that “This is a great and historic day for Latvia! And we will all need time to understand what happened, because something big and beautiful occurred!”
In Brazil, the night took on some bittersweetness when Torres went on to lose to Anora star Madison, a Los Angeles actor whose movie is far from the consciousness of Brazilians.
While some residents were upset, experts don’t expect it to affect their mood long-term. There’s just a star who might not want to count on Rio box office receipts anytime soon. “Winning over Brazilian hearts will [now] be a hard battle for Mikey Madison,” joked Santos.Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every daySign up for THR news straight to your inbox every daySubscribe for full access to The Hollywood ReporterSend us a tip using our anonymous form.
