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Gabriela Máximo | @gab2301 |
In the last three weeks, more than two million Brazilians went to the cinema to see a single feature film: “Ainda estouhere” (I am still here)from the award-winning director Walter Salles. The film recovers the memory of the military dictatorship (1964-1985) by portraying the drama of a family marked by the disappearance of the husband and father in the basements of repression. And it became the topic of the moment on social networks, bar tables, on the beaches and in the country’s press. The past returned to the order of the day on screens and also in real life. This is because, at the same time that the film hit theaters, Brazilians became aware of a coup plot hatched in 2022 by former President Jair Bolsonaro’s entourage to prevent the inauguration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and implement a regime of exception. A new civil-military coup almost did not occur.
The campaign to boycott the film carried out by the Bolsonaro extreme right on social networks was of no use.
With the theaters packed, people stand up and applaud when the film ends and the credits roll, many of them with tears in their eyes. Some spectators make reference to Bolsonaro and his radical followers with shouts of “No amnesty for the coup plotters.” The campaign to boycott the film carried out by the Bolsonaro extreme right on social networks was of no use. Walter Salles’ film reached first place in the box office, ahead of expected releases such as the blockbusters “Wicked” and “Gladiator 2,” and can represent Brazil at the Oscar 2025.
“Ainda is here” tells the story of the family of former deputy Rubens Paivawho was kidnapped, tortured and killed by agents of the dictatorship in January 1971, in Rio de Janeiro. For decades, the military denied responsibility for this death. They alleged that Paiva fled with the help of “terrorist elements” when he was taken to testify. The military dictatorship ended in 1985. Paiva’s body was never found and no agent of the dictatorship was punished. Only in 1996 – 25 years after his death and 11 after redemocratization – was his name included on the list of political missing persons and the family received the death certificate.
In Brazil, the return of democracy did not result in the punishment of human rights violators, contrary to what happened in Argentina and, to a lesser extent, in Chile, which managed to put torturers and murderers in jail despite of the “moorings” left by the Pinochet dictatorship. The Brazilian military took advantage of the Amnesty Law that they themselves imposed in 1979 and to this day the crimes remain unpunished.
Due to pressure from the military, Brazil has not even managed to build a human rights museum to date.
A National Truth Commission operated between 2011 and 2013, but without consequences for the guilty. Due to pressure from the military, Brazil has not even managed to build a human rights museum, like those that exist in neighboring countries. Far-right politicians, like Bolsonaro, take advantage of the ignorance of the new generations to exalt the military regime and defend its methods. Brazil was losing the memory of the dictatorship.
The 2022 coup plan put the military in jail
Last November, the Supreme Federal Court ordered the arrest of four Army soldiers and a military police officer, investigated for their participation in a coup d’état plan in 2022. The prisons were decreed after the Federal Police concluded a thorough investigation of several months about the case and accused Bolsonaro and 36 other people, of which 25 are soldiers. The prisons and indictments broke a long history of absolute impunity for crimes committed by the military.
“Ainda estou aqui” put the dictatorship into debate. Google data shows that in November, when the film was released, the number of searches on the topic grew by 60% compared to the previous month. There was also a significant increase in investigations related to the dictatorship. The question “What is the military dictatorship?”, for example, registered an increase of 510% according to the specialized site “Omelete”. A report from the newspaper “Folha de São Paulo” shows that the film inspired young people to upload stories of parents and grandparents tortured during the dictatorship to Tik Tok, with millions of views.
The death of Rubens Paiva and Eunice’s fight for justice
Paiva was a federal deputy when the military carried out the coup, on April 1, 1964. He was stripped of his political rights after making a speech against the coup plotters.
Paiva He was a federal deputy when the military carried out the coup, on April 1, 1964. He was stripped of his political rights after making a speech against the coup plotters. He went into exile in Europe, but returned a few months later to Brazil, where he returned to work as an engineer, his original profession. Although far from politics, Paiva maintained contacts with the opposition to the regime. He was never involved in the armed struggle, he only helped the politically persecuted as he could. He was arrested after the military intercepted letters sent to him by Brazilian exiles in Chile.
The film follows his wife’s struggle, Euniceto prove the murder of her husband under torture. When Rubens Paiva was taken from the comfortable house where he lived with his family facing the sea, in the Rio neighborhood of Leblon, Eunice was left alone with five children, between 11 and 18 years old. The day after her husband’s kidnapping, she was also arrested, along with her 15-year-old daughter Eliana. Eunice was imprisoned for 12 days, being questioned about Paiva’s activities. The teenage daughter was also interrogated and spent a night in a military unit, separated from her mother, before being released.
Until that tragic January 20, 1971, when she saw how men armed with machine guns took away her husband, Eunice was an upper-middle class housewife, who was in charge of raising her children, taking care of the house and her husband. With life devastated, he transformed. Played in the film by actress Fernanda TorresEunice became a human rights activist and one of the main voices in defense of the victims of the dictatorship. And he went further: at the age of 41 he returned to study, trained in Law and became a reference for the rights of indigenous peoples. Eunice died in 2018, at age 86, after living with Alzheimer’s for 14 years.
In 2013 alone, the National Truth Commission created during the government of Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016) revealed what happened to Rubens Paiva that summer of 1971. The key piece was the statement of Colonel Raymundo Ronaldo Campos. The soldier revealed the farce mounted by the Army to maintain that Paiva had been rescued by colleagues. Campos, who was a captain at that time, was the one who directed the car that had supposedly been attacked by “terrorists.” After hiding the truth for 43 years, he revealed that he was ordered to fake an ambush. Together with two other soldiers, he machine-gunned and set fire to the car that was abandoned in a sparsely inhabited area of the city.
At that point, Paiva was already dead. The former deputy (played by actor Selton Mello) He was taken to the premises of a well-known Army torture unit and tortured to death, the day after his arrest. Cecilia de Barros Correia Viveiros de Castro, imprisoned in the same operation and taken to the same military unit, reported seeing Paiva badly beaten, with blood stains on his clothes and his eyes blank, still alive. Cecilia was the person who had brought the letters from Chile, addressed to the former deputy.
The National Truth Commission identified Army Lieutenant Antonio Fernando Hughes de Carvalho as responsible for the torture sessions and death of Paiva
The National Truth Commission identified the Army Lieutenant Antonio Fernando Hughes de Carvalho as responsible for Paiva’s torture and death sessions. Five other soldiers were denounced by the Federal Public Ministry (the State Prosecutor’s Office) for the murder and concealment of the body. None were punished until today and only two are alive. When the Truth Commission delivered its final report on the death of Rubens Paiva, Eunice was already suffering from Alzheimer’s. She, who fought so hard for her husband’s memory, lost her lucidity before knowing what happened to him.
“Ainda estou aqui” is based on the book of the same name by journalist Marcelo Rubens Paivathe youngest son of Eunice and Rubens. In one of the most moving moments of the book, Marcelo narrates the day when the news program told the truth about his father’s death. Eunice, already in an advanced state of Alzheimer’s, seemed to return to lucidity for a brief moment when she saw the tragic story about her husband on television. To everyone’s surprise, he stared at the screen and said: “poor thing, poor thing…”, then returning to his private world, as if he had not seen anything. The scene is masterfully revived in the film by Fernanda Montenegro, mother of the protagonist Fernanda Torres and the greatest diva of Brazilian cinema and theater.
The National Board of Review, the official body of American film critics, included “Ainda estouhere” among the five best international, non-American productions. The film was indicated by the Brazilian Film Academy for represent Brazil in the 2025 Oscar dispute in the category of best international film, but it already has other important awards. It won the award for best screenplay at the Venice Film Festival, with a very long ovation after the screening; the audience award at the Vancouver Festival; and was recognized as best Brazilian fiction at the São Paulo International Film Festival.
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