Director Walter Salles won Brazil its first Academy Award for Best International Film with I’m Still Here / Ainda Estou Aqui, a family political drama. After five nominations, the South American country finally secured its first statuette, becoming the fifth Latin American film to win in this category.
Starring Golden Globe winner and Academy Award nominee Fernanda Montenegro, Maeve Jinkings, Fernanda Torres, and Selton Mello, the film tells the true story of the Paiva family. In 1970s Rio de Janeiro, during the military dictatorship, former deputy Rubens Paiva was taken from his home by soldiers for interrogation and was never seen again. His family’s search for the truth spanned three decades, but just as answers began to emerge, his wife, Eunice Paiva, began showing the first signs of Alzheimer's disease.
This marks Salles’s second nomination in the category, following Central Station (1998), which was also nominated for Best Foreign Language Film and earned Fernanda Montenegro a Best Actress nomination.
The 97th Academy Awards are being held this evening at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, California.
