An Oscar-nominated film sparks a reckoning with Brazil’s dictatorship
“I’m Still Here” is as much about the country’s present as its past
Towards the end of “I’m Still Here”, a Brazilian film set during the country’s military dictatorship, a photographer tells his subjects—a woman and her five children—not to smile. The father of the family, Rubens Paiva, has been “disappeared” by the dictatorship, and the photographer’s editor wants a suitably sad image. They defy the editor and flash toothy grins.
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This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “No more smiling”
From the February 22nd 2025 edition
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