I'm Still Here

Source: Venice Film Festival

‘I’m Still Here’

I’m Still Here, the first Brazilian film to win the international feature film Oscar, added the Platino Award for best Ibero-American film to its trophy cabinet at the Platino Awards in Madrid on Sunday night.

Brazilian master Walter Salles earned best director and Oscar-nominated Golden Globe winner Fernanda Torres was named best actress as the film took top prizes at IFEMA Municipal Palace.

The Brazilian (Videofilmes, RT Features) and French (MACT Productions) co-production follows a mother’s struggle to support her family after her husband disappears during the Brazilian dictatorship in the 1970s. Goodfellas represents sales and Sony Pictures Classics distributed in the US, where it earned more than $6m.

In February, I’m Still Here grossed a little over $600,000 in Spain through Vértigo Films, marking the biggest foreign-language film opening of the year to date and the biggest ever by a Latin American film, surpassing Salles’ 2004 classic The Motorcycle Diaries.

Arantxa Echevarría’s political thriller Undercover entered the race with 11 nominations and ultimately won best screenplay and editing. Echevarría previously won a Goya for her debut feature Carmen & Lola in 2019, which was also nominated for the Golden Camera in Cannes.

Undercover has become the highest-grossing film directed by a woman in Spanish history on $8.6m and tells the true story of a Spanish police officer who infiltrated the Basque terrorist group ETA. It is based on the life of Aranzazu Berradre Marín. Bowfinger, Beta, Esto También Pasará, and Atresmedia produced. Film Factory handles sales.

One of Spain’s most revered actors, Eduard Fernández, won best actor for his performance in Marco, based on the unlikely true story of Enric Marco, a man who falsely claimed to be a concentration camp survivor. Produced by Spain’s Irusoin, Moriarti, and Atresmedia Cine, the film was directed by Jon Garaño and Aitor Arregi, the filmmaking team behind The Endless Trench and The Giant.

The best first feature award went to The Dog Thief by Chilean-Bolivian director Vinko Tomičić, who previously co-directed Cockroach with Francisco Hevia. The film, which recently won Best Latin American Film at the Málaga Festival after premiering at Tribeca, follows an orphaned shoeshine boy in La Paz who steals the dog of his best client, a lonely tailor he sees as a father figure. Luxbox is handling international sales.

Netflix’s One Hundred Years Of Solitude won best TV series and best actor for Claudio Cataño.

The adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez’s Nobel Prize-winning masterpiece chronicles the life and generations of a fictitious Colombian community and is one of Latin America’s most ambitious productions. The late author’s sons, filmmaker Rodrigo García and Gonzalo García, are executive producers on the eight-episode series. Production on Season Two is underway.

This year, the Platino Awards partnered with Universo and Telemundo, bringing the ceremony’s broadcast to the United States. The Awards are promoted by EGEDA (Audiovisual Producers’ Rights Management Entity) and FIPCA (Ibero-American Federation of Film and Audiovisual Producers).

Mexican-American actress Eva Longoria received this year’s Honorary Award, presented in a surprise appearance by her friend Sofía Vergara. Longoria, whose television credits include Desperate Housewives and Only Murders in the Building, reflected on the early challenges of her career when she said: “I was too Latin for US roles and too American for Latin ones […] Fortunately, things are changing. Audacity is changing — and audacity demands diversity.”

As announced during the ceremony, next year’s edition of the Platino Awards will take place in Mexico.

Full list of 2025 Platino winners

Best Ibero-American fiction film
I’m Still Here (Br-Fr)

Best director
Walter Salles, I’m Still Here (Br-Fr)

Best actor
Eduard Fernández, Marco (Sp)

Best actress
Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here (Br-Fr)

Best ensemble actress
Clara Segura, The 47 (Sp)

Best ensemble actor
Daniel Fanego, The Jockey (Arg-Mex-Sp)

Best first film
The Dog Thief, Vinko Tomičić (Chil)

Best screenplay
Arantxa Echevarría, Amelia Mora, Undercover (Sp)

Best cinematography
Edu Grau, The Room Next Door (Sp-US)

Best original music
Alberto Iglesias, The Room Next Door (Sp-US)

Best sound
Diana Sagrista, Alejandro Castillo, Eva Valiño, Antonin Dalmasso, Saturn Return (Sp)

Best editing
Victoria Lammers, Undercover (Sp)

Best art direction
Eugenio Caballero, Carlos Y. Jacques, Pedro Páramo (Mex)

Film & education in values
Memories Of A Burning Body (Sp-CR)

Best animation film
Black Butterflies, David Baute (Sp)

Best Ibero-American comedy
Idol Affair, Teresa Bellón, César F. Calvillo (Sp)

Best documentary
The Echo, Tatiana Huezo (Mex-Ger)

Feature audience award
Undercover (Sp)

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Best fiction or documentary series
One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Col)

Best miniseries or series creator
Vicente Amorim, Fernando Coimbra, Luiz Bolognesi Patrícia Andrade, Senna (Br)

Best actor in a series or mini-series
Claudio Cataño, One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Col)

Best actress in a series or mini-series
Candela Peña, The Asunta Case (Sp)

Ensemble Actor In A Series Or Mini-Series
Jairo Camargo, One Hundred Years Of Solitud (Col)

Ensemble actress in a series or mini-series
Carmen Maura, Land oO Women (Sp)

TV Series audience award
One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Col)

Honorary Platino
Eva Longoria.

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