Ainda Estou Aqui (I’m Still Here) tells the story of Eunice Paiva (Fernanda Torres), an activist who started her work after the military dictatorship abducted her husband, Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello). The film won Best Script and a Green Drop Award at the Venice Film Festival and a Best Actress for Fernanda Torres at the Golden Globes.
So, it was no surprise when rumors about Fernanda Torres being nominated for a Best Actress Oscar began to circulate. While a nomination is generally an honor, this case would be a little different.
For context, Torres is the daughter of Fernanda Montenegro, one of the biggest actresses in Brazil’s history. And in 1999, Fernanda Montenegro was the first Latin-American actress in history to be nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award in a movie spoken in Brazilian Portuguese. So, it was no surprise Brazilians were on the edge of their seats when Jack Nicholson got up on stage to present the category’s nominees.
Each clip felt like torture and it felt like an eternity in the seconds between the words “And the Oscar goes to…” and the name of the winner. But it finally came and the Gwyneth Paltrow got up to accept her award.
If you are a cinephile, you’re probably familiar with the story. Shakespeare in Love’s Oscar campaign is famous – or rather, infamous – for how aggressive its award campaign was. Being, of course, a project of the one who shall not be named (Harvey Weinstein).
From constant appearances, dinners, Q&As, billboards, and even, allegedly, bad-mouthing other nominees, Weinstein and his team did it all to guarantee his Life Time coded movie (I’m still bitter and I’m not ashamed) got the golden baldy.
And while Fernanda Montenegro seemed fine with this personal loss – she has stated multiple times she believes the award should have been Blanchett’s for her amazing turn in Elizabeth – Brazilian audiences were not so easy to forget.
You see, while Montenegro’s story is one of the most emblematic Oscar snubs of Brazilian cinema, it is far from the only one.
It all begins in 1960, when the classic Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus) was making the rounds in the award circuit. By the time the Academy Awards rolled around, it had won a Palm d’Or, a Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes, and a nomination for Best Film Not in the English Language at the BAFTAs. The movie was a success – with critics and audiences – and talk of winning for Best International Film didn’t seem like such a far-fetched idea.
The night came and, could you believe it, it won! Truly, a historic moment: a story written by a Brazilian, with a Brazilian cast, spoken in Brazilian Portuguese, it was finally time that the statute went to… France?
You see, Brazilian cinema has always been marginal. Budgeting and producing a film now, with so many technological advancements and democratization of information, is difficult, and making it so 65 years ago, was even harder.
So, a common practice (to this day) is to co-produce films with other countries. In Orfeu Negro’s case it was a partnership between Brazil, France, and Italy. The director was French Marcel Camu and the only other gringa in the production was the French-American actor Marpessa Dawn. But to the Oscars, at the time, that was enough to classify the movie as French.
Unfortunately, Brazilian films keep getting snubbed. In 1963, O Pagador de Promessas (Keeper of Promises) – another Palm d’Or winner – lost to the French Les Dimanches de Ville d’Avray. In 1986, we moved into the Best Film category, but only because O Beijo da Mulher Aranha (The Kiss of the Spider-Woman) is a US/Brazil co-production. Then, we arrive in 1999, where Central do Brasil (Central Station) and Fernanda Montenegro got nominated.
A few years later, in 2004, Cidade de Deus (City of God) received multiple nominations, but, of course, Lord of The Rings was the big name that year and, once again, we went home empty-handed.
Now, I can not claim that the films that won were worse the Brazilian nominees – except for Shakespeare in Love, sorry, but that movie is just not it! – but it is undeniable that a lot of these productions had something our cinema doesn’t: money.
Of course, you don’t need billions of dollars to make a good movie. However, you do need it to market it.
Here’s the thing about running for an Academy Award: while they might claim it is all about the art and the passion for filmmaking, it is in fact a popularity contest.
For instance, Cidade de Deus, directed by Fernando Meirelles e Kátia Lund, is a small, independent film (with an $8 million budget including marketing) and it went against Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King, a film where the production itself cost around $95 million.
While Academy voters might occasionally enjoy a movie like Cidade de Deus, it is undeniable that films such as Lord of The Rings will constantly be on their minds, simply because the producers had more money to spend on ads and FYC dinner parties.
Beyond the money, there’s also the cultural barrier. American audiences are notorious for not watching foreign-language films. It was only in 2020 that a non-English speaking film, Parasite, was finally recognized as the Best Picture of the year.
All of these factors help create the mosaic of what an Oscar-worthy movie should be: preferably American or spoken in English, about topics that interest or make voters feel good about themselves, and backed by a robust marketing team/strategy.
While there are LATAM outliers, such as Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón, who manage to make their way into the belly of the Academy, it is not a surprise most Latin American filmmakers don’t make it into the Oscars.
And that is exactly why, when Fernanda Torres won that Golden Globe for Best Actress and Letterboxd showed that Ainda Estou Aqui was the top-rated drama in their whole app, Brazilians can’t help but feel a little bit vindicated.
This is a movie about how American paranoia about communism during the Cold War was responsible for the rise of dictatorships all around Latin America. The abduction, torture, and murder of many. And a Latina woman, refusing to follow the script. Yet, people all around the world, including in the US, connecting with it.
For the first time in a very long time, people are looking at us and seeing beyond the stereotype. Through Walter Salles’ beautiful direction, Selton Mello’s charisma, and Fernanda Torres’ powerhouse performance, Hollywood is hearing someone else’s story for once.
After all, Brazilians are very generous people, and sometimes it feels almost unfair that people in the US don’t know our movies, books, and music. As Fernanda Torres perfectly explained in a recent interview, “I know French culture, I know American culture, Russian culture, German, and Italian culture. But they don’t know much Brazilian culture… And sometimes I pity those who never read Machado de Assis.”
At the end of the day, Fernanda Torres might not win the Oscar this year or even be nominated for one. Regardless, when a movie like Ainda Estou Aqui makes this many waves in the Hollywood system, I think Brazilians and other Latin Americans alike have already won.
