On Sunday, Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres won a Golden Globe for best performance by a female actor in the drama category for the film “I’m Still Here,” directed by Brazilian director Walter Salles. It is the first time a Brazilian actress has won this award.
The movie portrays the family of Congressman Rubens Paiva, who was imprisoned and “disappeared” by Brazil’s military rulers in 1971 — a regime that was supported by the U.S. Torres played the widow of Paiva, Eunice, who transitioned from a housewife to a lawyer and human rights activist.
Many Brazilians are celebrating Torres’ award as if it were the World Cup, and the film surpassed Brazil’s international success, “City of God” (2002) — nominated for four Academy Awards — as a box-office hit in Brazil, with more than 3 million viewers.
We spoke with Marcia Borges, who has lived on the Island since 2023, and works as an interpreter at the Island’s public schools. She’s also a writer and historian, with a Ph.D. in communications. A visiting scholar at Columbia University in 2015, she researched Brazilian movies showcased in New York City.
Borges is hoping to bring the film to be screened on the Island, not only because of its artistic achievements, but also because it chronicles a piece of Brazilian history that many Americans and Brazilians don’t know about.
The interview was edited for space and clarity.
MVTimes: What is most remarkable about Fernanda Torres’ acting in this film?
Marcia Borges: She was able to express difficult emotions, even fear, with serenity, with assertiveness. Each movement, each speech was well-executed to the detail, such as a small hand movement, a smile; never too much. I was very young, about 12, and I remember seeing Eunice on TV — her integrity stuck with me. Torres was loyal to what Eunice was in real life; her performance of the main character of the film is stupendous.
MVTimes: Who was Eunice Paiva?
MB: She’s a strong woman who leads her life after a huge violence. She was a housewife who had to reinvent herself and take care of her five kids. She did so with so much integrity; she went to university, became a lawyer, and fought for human rights not only for her husband but also for indigenous people. She came from an upper-middle-class family, and many who lived through similar violence didn’t have the same resources. But it was also a time when women didn’t have many rights, and she resisted being portrayed as a victim — she was who she wanted to be.
MVTimes: How can Brazilian immigrants connect with this family’s story, even if they haven’t experienced the same reality of political persecution?
MB: Not just Brazilians, but every undocumented immigrant in any country, if they experience, for example, the deportation of a father. What happens is that the women stay and deal with the situation, fight for the family. I haven’t seen this happen during my time on the Island, but I’ve seen this situation in New York. Right now we don’t know what’s going to happen, as President-elect Donald Trump said he will order mass deportations. I think any immigrant in the U.S. is under pressure.
MVTimes: Why do you think it matters to Brazilian immigrants on the Island that a Brazilian actress is so highly recognized? How does this impact the dialogue between the Brazilian and American communities?
MB: It’s important for people to be proud of their own culture, and to spark curiosity about Brazilian culture, about what being Brazilian is like, what Brazil is like, and what Brazil can offer. There’s also so much innovation in Brazilian cinema’s history, like the Cinema Novo, which is recognized as revolutionary all over the world. Brazilians can be proud of high-quality art in many fields.
MVTimes: As a historian, can you tell us a bit more about the 21 years of dictatorship in Brazil? Why is it important to keep that memory alive, especially after widely reported accusations of a coup attempt by Brazilian former President Jair Bolsonaro and members of the military, as recently as 2022, and Bolsonaro’s denial of the dictatorship and the regime’s crimes?
MB: One of the legacies of this movie is that you can’t deny dictatorship happened after leaving the theater. This is not fiction; this is a real story. The movie doesn’t tell this story in a violent way, but you can see it’s there.
The parallel the film makes with Alzheimer’s disease, that Eunice has in the end, is beautiful, because Alzheimer’s doesn’t deny the life someone had. Society needs to be careful not to get Alzheimer’s disease. If you don’t keep the memory of what happened and don’t narrate the true history, you leave the way for fake history. Keeping the memory is a way to alert people not to repeat the past.
I was born in the dictatorship era. As a teenager in the ’80s, I went to protests to end it, and we were violently repressed. This movie honors everyone’s struggle for democracy.
MVTimes: Why is it important to have acclaimed films like this screened in places where the Brazilian community is such a big part of the population, like Martha’s Vineyard?
MB: It would be incredibly important for this film to be shown on the Island — and I’m trying to bring it here — because it portrays a piece of Brazil’s history that, more often than not, neither Brazilians nor Americans are fully aware of. Many Americans don’t know the history of a country that’s so close, with so many people living here and impacting local culture.
Any grave situation that a society goes through leaves lasting marks. Even if the population doesn’t remember the details of that history, it has been profoundly shaped by it.
