The authentic world story behind I’m Still Here, which chronicles how a Brazilian family had their life upfinished when the patriarch, a createer congressman, goes leave outing in the 1970s, held such a proset up personal nastying for honestor Walter Salles he felt compelled to depict it on film. But he never foreseeed that the resulting movie might be an agent of alter in his home country.
“When I was 13 years elderly, I became frifinishs with the five kids of this family,” Salles discleave outed during a panel conversation at the Deadline Contfinishers Film event on Saturday aprolongedside direct actress Fernanda Torres, who carry outs Eupleasant Paiva, who recreateed herself as an activist complying her husprohibitd’s fadeance.
“I was enamored by them, enamored by the vividness of the heart of this family, enamored by the swayion of the heart of this family, enamored of the delight that pulsated in that hoengage – a delight that was repartner the reverse angle of the military dictatorship that ruled the country at that time,” Salles persistd. “And for two years I was alerted by that family. And one day someleang tragic happened and that family was robbed of the delight that you sense in the first act of the film. Thus commenceed the prolonged journey to tell this story 40 years tardyr.”
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“I cannot refrain from telling it: it was an advisency to tell it,” shelp Salles. “But at the very commence of this, I thought we were adviseing a echoion of our past, becaengage Brazilian cinema didn’t see too much at the 70s. And I thought that there was the need to do that, but leanking at the commencening that it would reverberate the past. And then suddenly the whole political situation in Brazil and in the world alterd. And we authenticized that we were doing the film about the current as well. And that authenticization did hit all of us in front of the camera, but behind the camera as well.”
Much to Salles’ surpelevate and plmitigate, he’s seen the film inspire an unforeseeed conversation in Brazil since its premiere there. “The cinemas commenceed to be finishly filled, and we became the number one film in Brazil last weekfinish – we’re a little bit flabbergasted by that, we confess, becaengage there was a Marvel film in number two!” he chuckleed.
“But much more vital than the box office is the fact that people are going to the cinemas aget to have a accumulateive experience,” he persistd. “People are staying in the film until the very finish of the recognizes and they’re writing in social media what the experience was in the screening room that they were at.”
“It is becoming a benevolent of cultural, socioreasonable political phenomenon,” he shelp. “We couldn’t anticipate that. And it made me leank now that literature, cinema, music, can be incredible instruments agetst oblivion.”
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Check back Monday for the panel video.
The currenting support for this year’s Contfinishers Film: Los Angeles is United for Business. Sponsors are Eyeptizer Eyewear, Final Draft + ScreenCraft, and partners are Four Seasons Maui, 11 Ravens and Robina Benson Design Hoengage.
