Oscar Winner Walter Salles Talks Impact of ‘I’m Still Here’ on Brazilian Youths and Upcoming Project on Brazilian Soccer Player Sócrates at Doha Qumra Workshop
variety.comNick Vivarelli International Correspondent Oscar-winner Walter Salles, fresh from scoring the best international feature statuette for “I’m Still Here,” discussed the impact of his political drama on youth audiences in Brazil and underlined the importance of cinema as “an extraordinary tool of resistance” while attending the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra workshop in Qatar. “I’m Still Here,” the story of Brazilian activist Rubens Paiva’s 1970 disappearance at the hands of the Brazilian military dictatorship and his wife Eunice Paiva’s subsequent search for justice, recently marked a historic first Oscar win for Brazil.
Salles also pointed out that the film has now been “embraced by young generations of Brazilians” for whom it provided “access to a part of their history that had somehow been hidden.” ”The film has become their film,” Salles added, noting that Brazilian youths “took possession” of “I’m Still Here” and then “went to social media to narrate their own stories and the stories of their families during the dictatorship in Brazil.” As for what’s on the horizon, Salles, speaking to journalists, said he is editing a five-part doc series on Brazilian footballer and political activist Sócrates Brasileiro that he plans to finish by the year’s end. “He was born in the Amazon, in Pará, so it’s really about internal migration in Brazil at the very beginning,” Salles said.
Read more on variety.com