I'm Still Here - Democracy must always come first, and no coup can take place here again.

Acclaimed since its debut, I'm Still Here is a Brazilian film starring Fernanda Torres and Selton Mello with a biographical nature, which narrates the events of the Paiva family at the time of the military dictatorship in Brazil. Rubens Paiva was a former deputy, kidnapped and killed by the military in 1971, and the film shows the peace of the home before this happened and also the family's journey dealing with this profound rupture in their history.

Synopsis: At the beginning of the 1970s, Brazil faces the hardening of the military dictatorship. In Rio de Janeiro, the Paiva family – Rubens, Eunice and their five children – lives by the beach in a house with open doors to friends. One day, Rubens Paiva is taken by undercover soldiers and disappears.

The film begins with the Paiva family – made up of Rubens, Eunice and their five children – enjoying a day at the beach in Rio de Janeiro in the late 1970s, the height of the military dictatorship in Brazil. On the beach, they find and adopt a stray dog, who they name Pimpão, and have fun in the sun. This welcoming atmosphere is soon replaced by the current climate at the time, when we see the couple's eldest daughter being violently attacked by military personnel in a traffic stop upon returning from a walk with friends. From this scene onwards, the viewer begins to feel an anguish in their chest that never goes away: peace is always shaky, risk is always lurking and the fear that their children won't get home is real.

The film spends time showing the family dynamics, the partnership of Rubens and Eunice, their relationship with their children and the privileges they enjoy as a middle-class family living in the south zone of Rio. They receive friends at home, have lunches and dinners, listen to good music and have access to culture. But this privilege is not able to protect them, and the construction of the dynamic between them is fundamental to the feeling of empathy generated in the viewer. During these scenes that seem banal, the director shows Rubens making calls, welcoming people at the door, delivering documents – all out of sight. This narrative choice of never focusing on what Rubens is doing is perfect for making us get into Eunice's own confusion when things explode.

On an ordinary day, soldiers enter the Paiva house and take the former deputy with them to “give a statement”. This is the last time that Eunice Paiva sees her husband, and it is just the beginning of the character's suffering. Fernanda Torres does an emotional job of expressing her disorientation with everything that is happening (since she had no idea why her husband was being taken away) and, at the same time, the indestructible courage of a woman who does not want to give in it the dictatorship not even a tear. The strength she shows for her children, to never let herself be shaken and keep the family together after the loss of her husband, is moving. She herself goes through a traumatic experience, her family is under constant investigation and even basic things, like taking money from the bank, become an obstacle – considering that her husband was not presumed dead and is the legal representative of the family's bureaucracies. When we consider that, a few years later, Eunice decides to become a lawyer to fight for human rights and is a very important name in this field, the impact is even stronger. She never gave up on proving that Rubens was murdered, and this search is heartbreaking and at the same time inspiring.

Even though Selton Mello has less screen time, he perfectly fulfills the role of conveying a “good-natured” personality, with whom the viewer becomes fond. He is affectionate with his family, is charismatic and is always surrounded by friends. But at the same time, Eunice is devastated that she was never told what he was doing behind the scenes, even if it was under the guise of protecting her. Rubens' absence from the Paiva family becomes a presence in itself, even after he leaves the scene. In the house they intended to build, the families together eating ice cream or in the small habits they had together, Eunice's memory and her desire to do justice for her husband always keeps Rubens as a present figure. The cast responsible for bringing Rubens' children to life also strengthens this feeling, whether in conflicts with their mother or shared sadness, we realize that each one is suffering in their own way.

Despite not being an exaggerated film and focused on the horrors of the dictatorship (the torture, the abuse of power, the murders themselves), the few moments in which we have the presence of this already make the stomach turn. At the end of the film, there was not only applause that filled the movie theater, but also the tears being wiped away from those who were present at the screening. Everything takes on an even greater dimension when we remember that those things really happened to one family, and that the same or worse things happened to many others – and that the culprits were never or will never be punished. And, even though Eunice's memory was compromised at the end of her life, the title of the film is very representative not only of her and Rubens, but also of all those who resisted the horrors of the time. If I'm Still Here is not a film focused on showing the violence of the dictatorship in an explicit way, it doesn't spare us and moves us, it hurts precisely because it exposes the horror it causes by placing this violence in opposition to the very ordinary daily life of a common family. A family that could be made up of any of us, to a greater or lesser extent.