World
Movie Review: A family is torn apart under Brazil’s dictatorship in ‘I’m Still Here’
It’s easy to fall in love with the Paiva family. Filmmaker Walter Salles makes sure of that in “I’m Still Here.”
He drops the audience into the warm everyday of the beautiful home of Eunice (Fernanda Torres) and Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello), in 1970s Rio de Janeiro, where their five kids run freely between the beach and their living room. Life is calmly chaotic, full of affection, gentle familial teasing and various life stages (one is about to lose a tooth, another about to go to university). Someone always seems to have wet hair, be covered in sand, or bringing in a mangy stray, as their youngest, Marcelo, does in the film’s lovely opening. Even if their life is technically worlds away from any one person in the audience, it feels familiar and close.
Anyone coming to “I’m Still Here” will surely know that this domestic tranquility does not and cannot hold. It was about seven years into Brazil’s military dictatorship, which would last until 1985. And while the film suggests that there was a semblance of normalcy in their day to day, there are also ominous signs of change and oppression — reports of ambassadors being kidnapped on the news, and tense “random” traffic stops that their eldest daughter endures one night. Some left-leaning citizens are making plans to leave, but the Paiva family is not in a terrible rush. They’re even making plans to build a new home.
So when three men in civilian clothes enter their home one afternoon and tell Rubens, a former left-leaning congressman, that he needs to come in for questioning, it happens with little incident. Everyone is on guard — they’re not naive — but you sense that Eunice believes he will come back that night. Maybe even the next day. Rubens is calm changing into a collared shirt and tie and lying to his daughter that he is going into the office, even though it’s a holiday. But he also savors this moment with her, perhaps because he knows he’s likely to not return.
The film is based on a memoir written by Paiva’s son, Marcelo, but you don’t need to know that to know that it is first and foremost a memory piece. It is deeply personal and imbued with the kind of tenderness that is extremely difficult to see or appreciate in the moment. And although it’s certainly idealized and wistful, we accept any assumed white lies because we all wish that for ourselves: to truly recognize what we have before it’s gone.
This story is not about the abduction, however, or what may have happened to Rubens after that day. It’s about how Eunice continues on, through uncertainty, absence and, ultimately, the loss of hope. Salles chooses to tell this story in a rather straightforward manner, which works well, allowing the compelling narrative and the talented actors to carry the audience through.
At the heart of it is Torres, who has already won a Golden Globe for her performance and whose portrayal of Eunice is a true marvel. Mothers and wives often get the short shrift in movies like this, about Big Important Topics decided on by men, but Torres instills Eunice with a deep emotional and practical intelligence that’s beautifully feminine, whether she’s dealing with a misogynist banker, a dead dog in the street or the thugs surveilling her home. She’s fascinating and resilient in a way that so many women are in times of historical strife but rarely celebrated for.
In one particularly poignant scene, she and the kids are being photographed by a journalist hoping to tell their story. They smile together, as they did earlier in the film when Rubens was there. Now he’s not, and the reporters are confused. They ask Eunice to try a more serious expression. She laughs, “They want us to look sad,” and instructs her kids to keep smiling. It’s a perfect encapsulation of the complex spirit of the movie. Political disappearances don’t begin and end with the victim, or the toppling of a regime — they are generational traumas that live on in the survivors and alter everything in their wake.
“I’m Still Here,” a Sony Pictures Classics release in limited release Friday (expanding on Jan. 24), is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for “smoking, drug use, brief nudity, some strong language, thematic content.” Running time: 135 minutes. Three stars out of four.
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The United Kingdom on Monday blamed an Iran-linked proxy group for a string of antisemitic arson attacks targeting British Jewish sites, prompting the government to ban Tehran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and impose sweeping new powers to crack down on foreign-backed sabotage.
British officials said the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right (IMCR) publicly claimed responsibility for seven attacks this year targeting Jewish and Israeli-linked locations, as well as a Persian-language media outlet critical of Iran’s government. According to the U.K. government, members of the IRGC’s elite Qods Force were “almost certainly” directing the group’s operations across Europe.
The attacks included fires at synagogues, Jewish charity ambulances and other Jewish community sites in London. No injuries were reported.
DESANTIS ANNOUNCES PLANS TO USE NEW STATE LAW TO TARGET DOZENS OF ALLEGED TERRORIST GROUPS
Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer hosts a reception with the Jewish community to discuss efforts to tackle antisemitism, at Downing Street, in London, July 13, 2026. (Reuters/Suzanne Plunkett/Pool)
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the new measures send a clear message to foreign adversaries seeking to sow violence.
“We will never let Britain be a playground for states who want to spread fear, division and violence on our streets,” Starmer said. “Anyone acting on behalf of those who threaten our national security should be in no doubt that there is no place for you in Britain.”
Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer discusses efforts to tackle antisemitism at Downing Street in London, Monday, July 13, 2026. (Suzanne Plunkett/Pool Photo via AP)
If Parliament approves the designations later this week, anyone carrying out acts of sabotage — including arson — on behalf of the IRGC, IMCR or Russia’s GRU Volunteer Corps could face life imprisonment. Supporting or assisting the groups could carry prison sentences of up to 14 years.
The British government said the new authorities, created under the National Security (State Threats) Act 2026, will make it easier for prosecutors to secure convictions because they will no longer have to prove a direct foreign government connection in every case.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood accused both Tehran and Moscow of relying on criminal proxies to conduct hostile operations inside the United Kingdom.
“Iran and Russia are using proxies and thugs to do their dirty work on our shores,” Mahmood said. “I have rapidly designated three groups so those working for them will be tracked down and put behind bars.”
ISRAEL FORTIFIES BORDER WITH JORDAN AS IRAN SEEKS NEW TERROR PATH
The government said IMCR emerged online earlier this year and has also claimed responsibility for attacks on synagogues in Belgium and the Netherlands. British intelligence officials say Iran-backed proxy groups have increasingly recruited members of criminal organizations to carry out sabotage, intimidation and physical attacks across Europe, often targeting Jewish communities and Iranian dissidents.
Charred remains of ambulances belonging to Hatzola, a Jewish community organization, which were set on fire in an incident that the police say is being treated as an antisemitic hate crime, in London, March 23, 2026. (Hannah McKay/Reuters)
According to the U.K., MI5 identified at least 20 potentially lethal Iran-backed plots against individuals in Britain over the past year. The government has already sanctioned more than 550 Iranian-linked individuals and entities and has pledged £250 million ($334,662,500) over three years to strengthen security for Jewish communities, including increased protection for synagogues, schools and community centers.
Britain also designated Russia’s GRU Volunteer Corps, saying the group acts as a proxy for Russian military intelligence by recruiting individuals online to conduct sabotage, arson and other hostile operations.
The crackdown comes just weeks after two Romanian men were sentenced to prison for stabbing a journalist working for a Persian-language television station in London, an attack a British judge said was carried out on behalf of the Iranian state.
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Iran did not immediately comment on Monday’s announcement, according to The Associated Press.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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The European Union has sanctioned VK Company, which dominates Russia’s online sphere, for colluding with the Kremlin to identify critics of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and curtail access to independent sources of information.
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VK Company runs VKontakte, the country’s most popular social media site. Often described as “the Russian Facebook”, it has an estimated 70 million users.
The decision, taken on Monday by foreign ministers, points the finger at VK Company and an associated firm for developing and managing Max App, which is state-backed and comes pre-installed on all phones and tablets sold in Russia.
Citing experts, Brussels argues that Max App has “extensive surveillance features” that Russian authorities use to track online communications, gather data, monitor address books, identify user location and install autonomous updates.
The imposition of Max App has helped the state crack down on competitors, such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram, and on VPNs, the private networks that Russians employ to bypass increasingly stringent state restrictions on the Internet.
“VK has cooperated with Russian authorities in their repressive actions, including by providing them with data concerning users of its services who posted content criticising Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, or other content banned by the authorities,” the legal text says.
“VK has also participated in the government-ordered ban on the use of VPNs, through which Russian internet users could previously access independent content.”
Monday’s decision introduces an asset freeze and prohibits EU companies from making funds available to VK Company. In a statement to Russian state-owned media outlet TASS, the firm said that its applications and services remained “available to users as normal”.
Besides VK Company, the EU also sanctioned Citadel, VAS Experts and Norsi-Trans, three companies that provide hardware and software for the so-called System of Operative Investigative Measures that Russian authorities use to track online communication and target journalists, opposition figures, minority groups and ordinary citizens.
The restrictions were adopted under a special regime dedicated to punishing human rights violations.
Separately, the EU sanctionednine individuals and four entities accused of carrying out “malicious” cyber attacks against several member states.
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