I’m Still Here

As the Trump administration seeks to reassert strongman hegemony over the Americas, let’s not forget that it was the U.S.’s ignominious intervention—both covert and overt—that helped instigate the military coups and dictatorships that flourished in Latin America in the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s.

In Brazil, for example, the U.S. supported the Armed Forces in carrying out the 1964 coup that led to a 21-year military dictatorship and furnished the model for the other military regimes that—with similar gringo assistance—blossomed throughout the region. In the early years following the coup, U.S. foreign aid to Brazil skyrocketed—until the rampant detention, torture, rape, and “disappearing” of many Brazilians finally embarrassed the U.S. into condemning the human rights abuses. The total number of killings is unknown because officials falsely attributed many deaths to suicide, accidents, or other causes.

The 2024 biographical drama I’m Still Here tells the true story of one such disappearance and killing, and of the determined and decades-long search by the disappeared man’s wife, Eunice Paiva, to find out what happened. Based on the 2015 memoir by the same title—written by Marcelo Rubens Paiva (Eunice’s son)—the film focuses on Paiva’s metamorphosis from politician’s wife to head of household (with five children), law school graduate, indigenous rights expert, and truth-seeker. Fernanda Torres won a Golden Globe for her performance as Eunice, and I’m Still Here won an Oscar for Best International Feature Film.

According to Wikipedia, certain factions in Brazil unsuccessfully sought to organize a boycott of the film in their country, apparently objecting to the depiction of the military regime as a dictatorship. Most Brazilians know better. Human Rights Watch carefully documented that the violations in Brazil during military rule “constituted ‘widespread and systematic actions’ and were carried out as part of a ‘government policy’ planned and ordered by officials at the highest level.”