Reuters
[ Source : Reuters ]
The role of a mother who rebuilds her life after her husband goes missing during Brazil’s military regime in the 1970s.
Portrayed in “I’m Still Here,” earned actor Fernanda Torres her first Academy Awards nomination. But she says winning the Best Actress award is not her priority.
What the Brazilian actor would like to see happen in the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on March 2 is for the movie itself, which portrays the true story of former politician Rubens Paiva and his wife Eunice, to win. “I’m Still Here” has been nominated for Best International Feature and for Best Picture, a first for a Brazilian movie fully spoken in Portuguese.
“The Paiva family deserves it, and Eunice Paiva deserves it,” she told Reuters in an interview on Friday, one day after her nomination, adding that a prize in the international category “is already great.”
The movie, which tells the story of Eunice Paiva’s struggle to uncover the truth about her husband’s forced disappearance in 1971, “fulfilled a civic duty” of showing people what it means to live under an authoritarian regime, Torres, 59, said.
“When you read in a history book, ‘civil rights were suspended,’ that’s just a sentence. But in the film, this means that they can enter your house, take your father, then take your mother, your sister, leave you all alone,” she said.
After the interview with Reuters on Friday, videos surfaced on social media showing Torres performing in a 2008 comedy sketch with a blackened face to mimic a Black person. In a written statement on Monday, she said she “deeply regretted” it.
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