I'm Still Here: Revisiting the true story behind the Oscar-winning film

True stories told via the cinematic lens have a different way of hitting us. I'm Still Here, the Fernanda Torres starrer film, tells a story of not just a wife trying to find her missing husband but also shedding light on the brutality that went on there during those harsh times.

It was nominated for 47 awards, of which it won 21, including an Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, making it the first Brazilian-produced film to win big at the Oscars. With that, the mother-daughter duo of Fernanda Torres and Fernanda Montenegro, who also appear as an elderly Eunice Paiva, the film's lead character, have Oscar nominations to their names.

I'm Still Here is based on a memoir, Ainda Estou Aqu (meaning I'm still here), by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, Eunice Paiva's son, who began writing it while his mother was going through Alzheimer's disease. But before that, she became a symbol for fighting against dictatorship.

What is the real picture behind I'm Still Here?

Marcelo's father and Eunice's husband, Rubens Beyrodt Paiva (Selton Mello), who was an engineer and a congressman, was suspected to be a part of a guerrilla group resisting dictatorship in the country. On January 20, 1971, the military visited his home and arrested him alongside his daughter and his wife.

While the mother and the daughter were released, they never got to see Marcelo Rubens Palva. It was five decades later that they came across the confirmation of his demise. The story of the film then explores the events that followed while maintaining a touch with the present.

Eunice had not only lost the man of the family, but also had to step up as she had a family to provide for while also dealing with this issue at hand. Eunice even studied law in her 40s and graduated at 47.

She also criticized dictatorship like her husband and helped in campaigns that brought vital information about the military regime from archives. The Brazilian government finally issued the official death certificate in 1996, which was corrected for more accuracy in 2025.

Despite the military dictatorship fracturing the family, I'm Still Here accurately captures how it was being held together by the woman of the family. The saddest part about the entire narrative is, while her husband was killed the very next day, he was taken in, his killers were never prosecuted despite being identified in 2014.

What happened to Eunice Paiva?

Eunice lived with Alzheimer's disease for over a decade before succumbing to it at 89 on December 13, 2018. Marcelo's memoir was published three years before it happened, in August 2015.

He told TIME about the experience while he wrote the memoir. He said,

"I realized that my mother was losing her memory while Brazil was discussing its own memory. It was a very weird parallel and paradox to write about."

Ainda Estou Aqu went on to grab third place at the Premio Jabuti, which is considered Brazil's most traditional literary award, while also securing a nomination in the Oceanos Awards, another one of the literary awards in the nation.

During her career, she also fought for the country's indigenous people. In one of her reports involving demarcation of the Zoro, one of the indigenous communities in Brazil, she wrote,

"The rights of the Indigenous people to their land are inalienable and non-negotiable, and no valid argument can annul, limit, nullify, or alter the Zoró community’s right to the land that constitutes their natural habitat."

I'm Still Here isn't the only film that features Eunice; a 1978 documentary dubbed Eunice, Clarice, Thereza featured her alongside Clarice Herzog and Thereza Fiel, who joined hands in the fight against dictatorship in the nation.