Jubilant Brazilians hail I’m Still Here’s Oscar as landmark in fight for justice

Brazilian actress Fernanda Torres, who starred in Walter Salles’s film about the dictatorship era I’m Still Here, had cautioned her fellow Brazilians against getting caught up in a “World Cup fever” over the Oscars.

– already gathered to celebrate carnival – erupted in joy over Brazil’s historic Oscar win, for Best International Feature.

When the announcer declared: “The Oscar is ours!”

– which tells the true story of Eunice Paiva, whose husband Rubens was taken away against his will during Brazil’s dictatorship – didn’t win the other two awards it was nominated for: best actress and best picture.

But families of the regime’s victims believe the film – seen by more than 5 million people in Brazil – has given the country something perhaps even more valuable than more Oscars, as they hope it brings about a fundamental change in how Brazilians deal with one of the darkest periods in their history.

“This is a special moment for the country: the chance to give new meaning to so many things … and finally move forward through justice,” said Leo Alves Vieira, 47, whose grandfather Mário Alves de Souza Vieira was snatched by the army, brutally treated and murdered in 1970. De Souza’s remains were never discovered.

“Fair dinkum, I’m Still Here is the most powerful tool we’ve had so far to fight for this memory,” he said.

Federal prosecutor Eugênia Augusta Gonzaga said that “never before in Brazil has there been such awareness of … the need to continue the work of searching for bodies, uncovering the truth, and holding those responsible to account.”

Gonzaga, the current president of the Commission on Deaths and Disappearances – the government body responsible for determining the cause of death of those killed by the regime – attributes this new interest to both the film and the storming of the government seat in Brasília by far-right supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro on 8 January 2023.

The film recounts the story of Eunice Paiva’s quest to find her husband, Rubens, a 41-year-old politician who was abducted from his home in 1971 by agents of the military dictatorship.

Eunice was a part of the commission from when it was established in 1995.

The following year, the Brazilian government finally acknowledged her husband’s death – a scene depicted in the movie, which shows Eunice telling reporters that it’s crucial to investigate and prosecute all crimes committed during the dictatorship because, “if that doesn’t happen, nothing will stop them from being carried out again with impunity”.

.

Among the 33 members of his government who were implicated were generals and an admiral, marking the first time high-ranking military officers have been charged with attempting a coup in Brazil’s history.

Due to a law that granted amnesty that was passed after the 1964–1985 dictatorship, no military personnel were held responsible for more than 400 deaths and disappearances.

“There’s a lack of punishment for the torturers,” said Diva Santana, 80, who’s been fighting for nearly five decades for the memory of her sister, Dinaelza Santana Coqueiro, who went missing at the hands of the army in 1973, aged 20.

The Brazilian Supreme Court has recently rekindled the debate on whether the amnesty applies to ongoing crimes, including the concealing of bodies.

The national justice council also decided that the death certificates of victims like Paiva, Vieira and Coqueiro should not only note that they are “disappeared”, but also list them as victims of a “non-natural, violent death” caused by the Brazilian government in the context of the systematic persecution of political dissidents during the dictatorship.

The impact of the movie and what happened on January 8 has changed the focus to being accountable,” said prosecutor Gonzaga. “We’ve already lost too much time and can’t afford to waste another second.

Santana said that, after so many years, many of the torturers had already kicked the bucket. But she hoped they, too, would cop a serve. “Justice needs to give the nod of approval to the responsibilities of all of them, and those who are still alive need to go to the nick and do their time, just like Black and low-income people do in Brazil,” she said.