Walter Salles responds to “explosion of joy” in Brazil at ‘I’m Still Here’ Oscar win: “The most beautiful gift”

Walter Salles has described the “explosion of joy” in Brazil at his Oscar win for I’m Still Here as “the most beautiful gift”.

Speaking after his masterclass at the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra lab, Salles said the film “allowed younger generations to have a better understanding of what had happened in their own country. It was the contact with a hidden part of history that surfaced, and that is what made the film theirs.”

“There’s always a moment where the film ceases to be made by the family that allowed it to exist, and becomes something that belongs to a larger number of people,” said Salles. “That happened with this film in Brazil. I had the the same impression with Central Station (Salles’s 1998 film that was nominated for the best foreign language film Oscar); but the way the public embraced the film was way beyond [that].” 

The story of a woman whose husband is detained by Brazil’s 1970s military dictatorship, I’m Still Here won the Oscar for best international feature on Sunday, March 2. The announcement of the film’s award was greeted with wild celebrations in Brazil, of the kind typically reserved for football matches.

“People were actually celebrating that their film had been recognised, and that the culture had been recognised,” said Salles. “It’s the actresses of that culture and their sensibility that is being recognised. That explosion of joy – in the middle of the Carnival, which is the peak of our popular culture, the best of Brazil – in the middle of that, to have embraced cinema was extraordinary. When we saw those images it was the most beautiful gift.”

I’m Still Here debuted in competition at Venice in September last year; Salles has spent most of the subsequent seven months promoting the film, including to awards voters. “Central Station and (2004’s) The Motorcycle Diaries were also involved in these prizes – the word campaign was never brought up,” said Salles. “It was about cinema and the films. I find it very strange that this word is used all the time, because this discussion should be only about cinema.”

Salles credited US distributor Sony Pictures Classics for understanding that “the film had to speak for itself.”

“For those who have been to Los Angeles, have you seen a billboard with the film? No. A TV spot with the film? No. An ad with the film? No. But there were people who actually saw the film, and that explains the prizes and the reaction.”

“What kept us going is that the film was embraced in every country by filmmakers and actors who helped it to exist within that culture,” said Salles, citing the support of Valeria Golino in Italy, Wim Wenders in Germany, Olivier Assayas in France and Santiago Mitre in Argentina.

Collective impact

Responding to a question about the disparity in budgets between some studio films and many independent titles, Salles also credited the 97^th Academy Awards for being “a celebration of independent cinema as a whole.”

“Anora is a film whose freshness rests from the independent spirit,” said Salles. “It’s not by accident that it’s written, directed and edited by the same guy (Sean Baker), and I would subscribe to everything that he said that day.” At the Oscars, Baker made the last of his several speeches throughout the awards season in defence of independent cinema, and the cinema-going experience.

“What happened in Brazil could never have happened, would never have gained that social and political impact if the film hadn’t been shared collectively,” said Salles of I’m Still Here. “The fact that so many different generations came to cinemas is what allowed them to articulate the thoughts that were ignited by the film; and do their own videos on that era, and tell stories about their families in that era.”

Salles also celebrated best animated feature Flow, an independent Latvian title directed by Gints Zilbalodis. “Flow was made by such a brilliant independent artist, who is able to articulate such a personal film and reach more people than a $300m film would probably reach,” said Salles.

Will the studios learn from the independent success at the Oscars? “I don’t know, that’s too big of a question,” laughed Salles.

After his seven-month tour for the film, Salles is going to take a few weeks off before entering the editing room for Socrates Brasileiro, his five part docuseries about Socrates, the footballer who captained the great Brazil team at the 1982 World Cup, and also became a doctor and leading political figure in his homeland. Salles shot the series before I’m Still Here, filming in Brazil as well as Florence, Italy.

The series will depict Socrates’ life from his early days in the Amazonian state of Para, through his football career and political work. “It’s really internal migration in Brazil at the very beginning,” said Salles. “Then it becomes a project about soccer, then how he soon perceived that soccer was an extraordinary vehicle for political transformation.”

Fight against oblivion

In his two-hour Qumra masterclass, Salles referenced the influence of filmmakers including Michelangelo Antonioni, Abbas Kiarostami and Robert Redford – the latter of whom suggested that he adapt The Motorcycle Diaries.

He also spoke up for the importance of cinema amidst current political troubles. “In an age where people are trying to erase memory – I’m not going to cite which people they are; are trying to erase education, cinema is a way to fight against oblivion,” said Salles. “It’s about constructing memory as opposed to erasing memory.”

He related this to another nominee for the international feature Oscar this year – Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed Of The Sacred Fig. “It doesn’t matter how you register things, it’s the importance of registering things,” said Salles. “That will become memory at the end of the day; that accumulated memory is our identity in motion.”

Having developed his early films through the Sundance Institute’s lab programmes, Salles advocated for such collective endeavours, including Qumra. “This only says how important the DFI and Sundance Institute can be for that; it allows emerging filmmakers to talk about emerging themes, and give name to what hasn’t been named yet,” said Salles.

The Qumra masterclass programme continues on Tuesday, April 8 with Mexican costume designer Anna Terrazas.

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