Interview With "I'm Still Here" Star Fernanda Torres

[Music] Fernanda thank you again so very much for your time today I I know you've been receiving uh I know you've been doing a lot of interviews and speaking with so many people and I'm happy you are because you you deliver such a beautiful performance in this film so it's all very much deserved thank you um we are so uh surprised in a way the way the film has been received now it's just opened in Brazil and it was like a big big hit so we're so happy with it oh I can imagine I mean

the the Home Country finally getting able to to screen this film what have the what have some of been the reactions that you've heard from from the Brazilian audience amazing reactions because you know after the pandemia people just bought this huge television sets and Cinema I think it happened here too people were not going to Cinemas anymore more so much and then suddenly because of our movie it created this kind of uh national pride around the movie and people are going families going to movies and people like crying and embracing each other at the end

of the the screenies and full screenies like packed with people we are so proud of it we're so happy because finally that's the main goal I mean to to have people in movies so we're really really happy and especially one that deals with a topic that unfortunately so many people maybe were directly impacted by new of friends family members whoever it might be I'm sure even that adds even more of a emotional and I don't know if cathartic uh is a correct word to use but I think it just brings about a number of different

emotions for people a lot of first to discover this woman who is like a heroine she I mean the way she fought against uh the dictatorship was in such a a special way she was not never like aggressive she was always smiling and through Justice he was able to finally have them recognizing what they did with her to her family and also because it's a family movie yeah it's a movie that says something really said about our history and the history of the world because the dictatorship in this in South America didn't happened uh because

of South American problems was during the Cold War when the whole world went berserk so uh and there it happened this way and now again the movie is kind of crazy again with all this violence and people aggressive and and so suddenly you tell the story about enduring and resisting but through a family through a faction so what is amazing in Brazil is that we are starting to see that people from all kinds of uh political beliefs and religion beliefs it doesn't matter because they are like they're having empathy for this family this woman so

we are kind of winning this binary world that we're living in now through this movie so it's very touching I think it's a movie about that time of course but it's a movie about now a lot about now yeah it's always it's always so fascinating how you know we always think and hope history doesn't repeat itself and at least the you know the the emotions and the ways that people treated one another that they've learned from that they've learned from those mistakes but it's really unfortunate how many times we just see these Cycles continue and

I mean really what a better time then now to release a film such as this yes that's what I think and not from the point of view of the gorilla people who are like who are like fighting and uh holding guns against the dictatorship no through this very intelligent woman and the way she dealed with the family uh I mean it's a woman she really faced the tragic story it's not a melodrama and the way she like had she was not allowed to have self-pity or to cry in the street she had to just move

on and this is so such a strange uh and Powerful message to all of us now now I think it and not only because of uh I think the Pol ICS I think we're living in a time of fear because of the pandemia and global warming it's like an apocalyptical world that we're living now and suddenly this family this woman reminds us that there is love I mean there is a way of dealing with difficulty that perhaps we can endure if we believe in this kind of bond you see so it's a very powerful film

for now I think I agree definitely and I had a I had the privilege to view this at the premiere in Venice um where I know so many of my fellow critics really really enjoyed this film um I I'm curious for yourself I I studied Spanish when I was in school and so I had an opportunity to learn a lot about uh just South American history and culture and of course diving into some of these uh you know military dictatorships just throughout the continent um for yourself of course as a Brazilian uh resident woman um

and specifically with uh the Piva story and nunas Piva fight was this specific family's Story one that you had known of for for decades at this point or was this more of a newer introduction for you that's the thing Marcel hubin spiv who wrote the book that the film is based on he became this very famous writer when he was 20 years old he had this accident and he lost the movements of his body and suddenly you had this beautiful boy totally paralyzed but he wrote a book about his recovered recovery that was like a

hit a blockbuster to my generation I like to say that he became like this sex symbol for my generation I was younger than him and and we all knew that his father had been uh had disappeared tortured and killed during the dictatorship but nobody knew details about this story because actually the family just discovered the details in 2014 right so it was really a hidden story for Brazil so when he released the book I I was not involved in the movie yet I I ran to read it and the story is much more amazing and

incredible than than I could think and then the details of how this family was not even allowed to to bury their father's uh their father I mean not even the body was returned and and and how is it possible I mean so no I didn't know I I knew it I knew just the headline of the story but never the details and this book allowed me to to find get to know the details of how a boy is this boy who is behind you he's the one who wrote the story and how he endured it

at the age of nine uh and then the idea that that we don't know it and that we never knew this woman because she she started as the Widow of Ruben's SP and then the mother of Marcel huin spiv but we didn't know how great she was so and the movie is interesting because he doesn't give you historical details you just know the story that they know that she is allowed to know so when she goes to prison you only hear the torture you never see the torture which is very powerful uh so now I

think the movie is like touching the hearts of people you know the heart of people and I think they will be like uh uh curious about the whole story and then they have the book and then they have history so it's very important that you understand that was not uh because when when you depicts like a gorilla hero uh it doesn't look like your family right but in this movie you think but if it happened to my family this is not fair so the the feeling that this is this is very unjust I think this

film is very powerful to deliver this message and I I know I've seen the film twice now and I really do respect that the film comes at it in the most realistic way possible it's not overdramatizing these events they're already very harrowing and very heartbreaking for this family as is but you don't need as you said you don't need to see torture because Unice did not witness that herself we're just seeing inside of their lives and it's better to stay as realistic as possible to them and their experiences than to you know just overly add

all of this extra drama when it doesn't necessarily need to be in there this is something very special about this movie when I watched it for the first time I was like really surprised because with the honesty of this film The Way We act doesn't look like acting because when you when you act normally you have a lot of codes that are good but they are like fiction codes how you are supposed to cry how you're supposed to scream how the camera is supposed to uh to shoot a an anger scene but then in this

movie vter the director he almost disappeared I mean it's a very humble movie from the point of view of a director because he doesn't show off the music won't push you nothing will push you she doesn't cry and this is something that wanted to be very faithful to the real it it comes from her that uh the fact that we don't show off this isi and then when I looked at us I mean the house the Wardrobe everything looked so real yeah and this is was really amazing for me I've never seen such a truthful

movie and the way we we act I was surprised with me I was like my God I deliver such an honest uh performance which I'm very proud of it teached me a lot and when when nisi doesn't cry then the audience cries for her right it's like it it becames a kind of uh the AUD the audience knows what she's going through but then she doesn't show it so the audience it starts to cry because this woman is not crying and this is very powerful very powerful in this movie A friend of mine from New

Yorker New Yorker he told me you know I felt things that for a long time I I don't remember I felt in movies the way it's like moved me so it's it's a very powerful movie I think in this sense that's a true sign of it when a New Yorker of all people can say that exactly I mean ironic as hell cold intellectual and then he was crying you see yes I I I entirely agree with that especially that first act when we are just spending time with the family and you just feel so much

love and so much you know it just feels like a home with all of these people together there's so many children running around but there's so much love shared between each of the siblings and they have a new puppy in their life and just the mother and father are just so just have this beautiful bond that it really makes it so much harder to to say goodbye to Ruben once he exits and unbeknownst to everybody that's the last time that we will see him and that the family sees him it just makes that cut so

much more difficult to process and I was uh I was curious for yourself too as you transitioned into that lat latter part of the film where it's you taking on this very powerful matriarch character and you are being so stoic in front of all of these children um how do you make switch then when it comes to your performance that was Ved I mean he shot it chronological chronologically so the beginning I mean that party we're all friends all those actors they are friends so and the house I like to say the kitchen smelled like

garlic everything was so real that house is so wonderful such a beautiful Beau home in a very beautiful part of Rio and it was sunny time and our friends and to be with kids to to perform to interact with kids it's it always creates something so fresh and then one day Stelton was gone the actor that does Hing and act selton is my friend and I realized that NE next day he wouldn't be there mhm and he was not there and the house was closed so we didn't have the light anymore and then one day

I was taken to prison chronologically so it the whole chronological things allowed it me to to dip in it just like Oni did and and this was a director choice I mean that helped a lot for us to build to do not pretend we're feeling that we're really feeling that for instance at the end when the house was being they moving and and they were like putting everything the furniture in the truck the girl who does the movie the little girl was her her her first movie she was not an actress and she was like

looking the furniture being put in the truck and she realized that it was the end of that Adventure in her life yeah so there's a take of word and it's a mix of the actress and the character which is very beautiful in the movie and I I like to hear that that this film was filmed in chronological order as you said I think that that just adds even more of the the inner drama that each of the actors feel and I think that that helps show even more so through the performances just how much of

a impact is felt but that's it and that was vta's choice I remember the a certain point who could do the prison before we start in the beginning of the shooting and he says no way there is no way you are not going to do it chronologically you see that makes sense um I know you don't have too much time left with me no I do please it's a pleasure of course of course I did just want to um just quickly ask you one more question and that is I know that you two don't share

a scene together in this film but you and mother get to play the same brilliant woman in this film um I I'd love to know if you were on Set uh when your mother came in to finish off the film and I guess just what it was like either getting to see her or I'm sure so many people comment congregating to seeing Fernanda on screen and do her work because she's just a brilliant brilliant woman well my mother is something else and in this film we have this other uh lady of very emotional thing which

is I did foreign land when with vter uh 30 years ago and was our formative movie I know that vter discovered what kind of director he was in foreign land and then later I saw him taking that and doing Central Station with my mother and then suddenly now we're all together in I'm still here and so even the the passage I mean from me to my mother it's so moving and the part she does is like my mother she she she has done so many uh great characters in her life I mean she's like a

she has all those characters in her soul and suddenly to see her with Alzheimer and totally blank and empty this is so moving I mean and to have both of us in the same film it also I think creates this idea that endurance that art is enduring in Brazil uh sometimes we are attacked sometimes we're loved but we endure so Andi reminded me a lot of my mother at that time in the 70s I used to to live in a house just like that so we didn't we didn't uh do scenes together she saw me

she wanted to see me doing it before doing her uni but the fact that we are together in this movie with vter and that the movie is receiving such a recognition just like Central Station in a way it's so moving for us and it has this other very emotive and a very touching layer to the movie I think even though she doesn't say anything in this film it's just enough to look in her eyes and see the you know her eyes gleam up for one second and I think you have the same effect with us

in this film too and just many of your Quiet Moments so I mean what a what an amazing film to blend to wonderful actresses together yes it has a lot of uh meaning this movie stally emotionally uh in the art sense I mean it's it's a very delicate which is not it's a rare thing to happen nowadays it's a delicate profound movie I think and it has me and my mother together with vter with which like touches me a lot what more could you want nothing else now is retirement we're done we're done I told

the kids when they when we finished and in Venice I told them you know this is your first movie from now on it's you just go down you can't go up I mean you are in the peak of our career that sets them off with a very good message enjoy yeah well Fernanda I I know you have a few other interviews to come for later today but I just want to thank you so much for your time it was an absolute pleasure to meet you and to speak with you and really congratulations again on your

wonderful work in this film oh thank you very much for this interview and for you being there and watching the film two times uh it's a very special movie for us thank you very much absolutely n