Sony Pictures Classics has bought the North American rights to I’m Still Here, a film by the acclaimed Brazilian director Walter Salles, who made Central Station and The Motorcycle Diaries.

I’m Still Here is based on a true story about Eunice Pavia, a woman who becomes a political activist after her husband, Rubens, is captured and tortured to death by Brazil’s military regime in the 1960s. It is based on a memoir by their son, Marcelo Rubens Pavia. . The script was written by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega.

During her truth-finding campaign, Eunice Pavia was herself incarcerated in a dark cell for twelve days. She ultimately documented the case, which impelled the National Truth Commission to declare that her husband had indeed suffered death at the hands of his captors.

 

In I’m Still Here, the role of Eunice Pavia is portrayed by Fernanda Montenegro, who had earlier starred in Salles’s 1998 film Central Station, also released by Sony Pictures Classics. That acclaimed film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language, and it also won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

In a 2021 interview, Salles told Deadline that he was “triggered” into making the film after reading the memoir written by Marcelo Rubens Pavia, who was a childhood friend of his. Salles said, “They had this rich life with friends, levity, humor and a light that made a lot of us gravitate around their house.

One day, the unexpected happened when the father was taken to the military headquarters for an interrogation. No one in that moment knew that was the last time they would see him again. This coincided with a moment of this Brazilian totalitarian regime, where things started to become extremely violent, and where there was censorship and torture.”

In addition to the North American rights for I’m Still Here, the deal gives Sony distribution rights in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Turkey, Portugal, and Australia.

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