“Of course I want to dedicated this to my mother. You have no idea. She was here 25 year ago and this is like a proof that art can endure through life,” said Brazilian’s Fernanda Torres, accepting her Golden Globe for Best Female Actor in A Motion Picture Drama for Walter Salles I’m Still Here in a competitive filed that included Nicole Kidman and Angeline Jolie.
Torres, one of Brazil’s best-known actors is the daughter of Fernanda Montenegro, an icon of Brazilian cinema, who was nominated for an Oscar in 1999 for Salles’ breakthrough feature Central Station. She did not win but the took best international feature. The elder Fernanda appears in I’m Still Here as an older version of Torres’ character.
“Thank you Walter Salles, my partner, my friend. What a story,” Torres said.
Salles’ first dramatic feature in 12 years is a gripping story of life under tyranny with Torres starring as Eunice, a wife and mother of five in Rio de Janeiro whose sun dappled and family beach outings and joyous dinners with friends give way to terror and tragedy under the dictatorship that seized power in Brazil in 1964.
Her husband Reubens, once a member of Congress when Brazil was a democracy, spent a period in exile after the coup but appeared to steer clear of politics after. He is disappeared and things begin to crumble, with the family and the film resting on Torres’ subtle performance as she grieves silently, keeping it together for the kids as her life takes an unexpected direction. It’s based on a true story.
Torres shows “through the smallest and subtlest signals, what it costs her to hold back her anxiety and anger for the sake of her family. It is a performance that should catapult her into the awards race,” said Deadline’s review when the film premiered at Venice.
With political division and a number of countries swinging to the right, Torres said I’m Still Here echoes “the awful things that are happening now in the world, with so much fear” and “helps us see how to survive in times like this.”
The Sony Pictures Classics’ film was also nominated for Best Non-English Language Film at the Globes, and has been shortlisted for the Best International Feature Oscar.
Other nominees in the category included Pamela Anderson (The Last Showgirl), Tilda Swinton (The Room Next Door) and Kate Winslet (Lee).