Fernanda Torres: ‘Sometimes you dream of your children holding you on their lap, but it doesn’t work out. The mother’s role is to hold

A family with five children and a dog. An equally large, noisy house facing the sea. One comes and goes with friends, who spread out across a spacious dining table. There is lots of music, dancing and laughter.

Director Walter Salles builds the perfect castle to then tear it down in “I’m Still Here”, a film that premiered on Thursday (7/11) across Brazil and will represent the country in the fight for Oscar nominations.

Based on a real tragedy — the disappearance of deputy Rubens Paiva by the military dictatorship, in 1971 — the film also talks about the impermanence of life.

“And life is incredible, because sometimes these moments of terrible difficulty end up forming your character. And that’s what I think happened with Eunice”, says actress Fernanda Torres to BBC News Brasil in a telephone interview, from Los Angeles.

In the film, Fernanda Torres plays Eunice Paiva, wife of Rubens Paiva, who sees her life turned upside down after her husband’s disappearance.

The film also features a small participation from his mother, actress Fernanda Montenegro. But Fernanda Torres says that, in principle, this participation was much greater.

The mother was supposed to play Eunice in the last years of her life, when she was affected by the difficulties arising from Alzheimer’s.

“But mom said she wouldn’t do it, because it was a mistake to remove one actress and add another”, says Fernanda Torres. “That’s why I was kind of scared. But I think I managed.”

But in the end, the scenes that showed Eunice’s life with the disease ended up being cut.

“There was a very powerful scene that is with [atriz] Marjorie Estiano [que interpreta uma das filhas do casal, Eliana] taking Eunice in a wheelchair to Doi-CODI.”

In addition to taking care of her children alone and fighting for her husband’s death to be recognized, Eunice Paiva went to study law and became the greatest expert in indigenous law in the country at that time.

The book of the same name by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, which gives rise to the film, describes the drama of that independent woman who ends up stricken with the disease.

“Eunice’s biggest fear was becoming dependent. That’s why there comes a time when she asks to be banned,” says Fernanda.

“This is something that every family ends up dealing with, if you’re lucky enough to live a long time. And you only learn by living, you can’t predict it, it’s not an overnight thing. It’s subtle.”

With the cuts, Fernanda Montenegro ends up appearing as Eunice, in the final scene. Therefore, the film is also the reunion of Walter Salles with the actress, almost 30 years after the filming of “Central do Brasil”.

Critically acclaimed, the film took Brazil to the Oscars red carpet, consecrating Fernanda Montenegro as the first Latin American woman to compete for a statuette for best actress.

But she ended up losing to Gwyneth Paltrow, from “Shakespeare in Love.”

Now, “I’m Still Here” could once again lead Brazil to compete for an unprecedented statuette.

Awarded for its screenplay at the Venice Film Festival, the film was chosen to represent Brazil in the Oscar nominations, which will be announced on January 17, 2025.

Expectations for the ceremony, which takes place on March 2, are high. But for Fernanda, the most important thing is to get Brazilians back into the movie theaters. “I would love for it to be a film that brings audiences back to cinema in Brazil,” he says.

“During the pandemic, everyone bought a huge TV, so for something to take you out of the house and make you go to the cinema, it has to be something that sparks curiosity, a certain urgency to see.”

According to her, “I’m Still Here” is a film “about Brazil and for Brazil”. “You can be left, right, center, it doesn’t matter, I’m sure it will touch you in a different place, I’ve seen it in every country the film has been in.”

Campaigning for festivals and for the film to compete for the Oscars, Fernanda will spend the rest of November in Los Angeles.

“In the last five months, I must have spent five days in Brazil”, he says.

“I’m glad my children are old now, because otherwise I don’t know what it would be like.”

Just like Eunice Paiva, who had five children, motherhood is very present in Fernanda’s life.

She had two children with director Andrucha Waddington, who already had two other boys when they met.

“I have this mother side of Eunice too,” he says.

“And Eunice reminds me a lot of my mother, having this intelligence of a woman from the 1970s, which, in a way, I think I inherited too.”

In the film, Eunice ends up raising her five children alone, who were still children when their father was taken away.

In one scene, she is forced to say that “Mommy isn’t sad” and wipe away her tears when asked by one of her daughters why she was sad.

“The mother, in a way, really has to hold it together”, he says, and then considers it.

“Sometimes you dream of your children holding you on their lap, but when you try, it doesn’t work out very well. [risos]. Every mother has had this: you try to cry so that your child feels sorry for you, but usually they don’t, and I think that’s the mother’s role, to be there to hold on.”

This wall that Eunice transforms into is marked all the time in the film.

In one of the scenes, she orders her children to smile in a portrait for the magazine “Manchete”, while her husband is missing, after the reporter asks for a “sad” look.

“There’s no point sitting on the sidewalk and crying, because the gods won’t have pity on you”, summarizes Fernanda, about Eunice Paiva’s vital energy.

RUBENS PAIVA CASE IS STOPPED AT THE SUPREME

Rubens Paiva’s death was recognized only 40 years after he was murdered by the military.

However, to this day those responsible for the crime have not been held accountable.

It was through investigative work carried out by the National Truth Commission (CNV), which identified those suspected of having participated in the deputy’s murder.

Based on the CNV report, the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) denounced, in 2014, five former members of the military dictatorship’s repression system for the murder and concealment of the deputy’s corpse: José Antonio Nogueira Belham, Rubens Paim Sampaio, Jurandyr Ochsendorf and Souza, Jacy Ochsendorf e Souza and Raymundo Ronaldo Campos.

The charges included intentional homicide, concealment of a corpse, armed criminal association and procedural fraud.

The Federal Court of Rio de Janeiro accepted the complaint, which was later confirmed by the Regional Court of the 2nd Region.

But the defendants’ defense requested habeas corpus, which was denied by the Federal Regional Court. The case then reached the Federal Supreme Court (STF), which, through minister Teori Zavascki, granted an injunction in 2014, paralyzing the process.

Minister Alexandre de Moraes inherited Zavascki’s pending cases after his death in 2017 as a result of a plane crash. After six years without any action, last month Moraes asked the Attorney General’s Office to comment on the case.

Of the five soldiers accused of the crime, three have already died.

This text was originally published here.