How Oscar-Nominated ‘I’m Still Here’ May Hold Brazil’s Military Accountable

“I’m Still Here” — the Oscar best picture nominee about the murder of a Brazilian congressman by the country’s military dictatorship — concludes with a single sentence that delivers a gut punch of historical reality: The five soldiers charged in the killing were never punished because of laws granting them amnesty.

Now the film could help change that.

This month, Brazil’s Supreme Court unanimously decided to review whether it should revoke the amnesty of the army officers accused of killing the congressman, Rubens Paiva, and two others. That followed a December decision by one justice to recommend the removal of amnesty protections in a separate dictatorship-era case. In his ruling, the justice explicitly cited “I’m Still Here.”

The sudden and extraordinary judicial reckoning the film has provoked could have sweeping legal implications: Will Brazil’s amnesty law, as it has for nearly a half-century, continue to shield those who committed atrocities during the dictatorship?

The fact that question is being raised now shows how “I’m Still Here” — in addition to its remarkable commercial and critical success — has also had a major political impact in Brazil.

And since the film’s release in November, the authorities have revised the victims’ death certificates to make clear they died at the hands of the military and to reopen cold cases to see if they were connected to the military regime.

“Brazil still has many open wounds,” said Mr. Paiva’s son, Marcelo Rubens Paiva, whose book about his mother’s handling of his father’s disappearance inspired the film. “I think this whole movement has made society, especially young people, reflect on what kind of country they want.”

Through the personal story of one family’s ordeal at the hands of the dictatorship, the film has largely succeeded in crossing political lines and rallying Brazilians around the common idea of justice, said Fernanda Torres, whose depiction of Eunice, Mr. Paiva’s widow, has earned her widespread acclaim and a nomination for best actress in Sunday’s Academy Awards.

“That hasn’t happened in a long time — a cultural phenomenon around which we all agree that it’s not fair, that this family didn’t deserve it, this father didn’t deserve the fate he had,” Ms. Torres said in an interview. “We’re really living in a moment of revolution,” she added. “Culture has immense power.”

The film’s message was made especially chilling because it arrived amid new allegations of modern threats to Brazil’s young democracy from former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was charged this month with overseeing plans to stage a coup and kill his rival, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, after losing the 2022 elections.

That has helped expand calls for justice. Caetano Veloso, one of Brazil’s most prolific singers and songwriters, said in an interview that at his most recent concerts, the enormous crowds have taken to chanting “No Amnesty” — a reference seemingly to laws protecting the dictatorship, but also to new bills that could protect Mr. Bolsonaro.

“I’ve never seen that,” said Mr. Veloso, who was himself imprisoned and exiled during the dictatorship.

Human rights groups estimate that more than 400 people were forcibly disappeared and some 20,000 were tortured in Brazil during the dictatorship. But, unlike Chile or Argentina, where many crimes committed under military dictatorships have resulted in trials and punishment, and the death tolls were much higher, Brazil has not pursued accountability for its army’s atrocities.

Mr. Paiva, a leftist congressman, was expelled from office by the dictatorship but continued resisting the regime, and was accused by it of exchanging letters with dissidents in exile.

In Brazil, the transition back to democracy was largely shaped by the military junta itself, which passed an amnesty law in 1979 shielding both dissidents and military officials from prosecution.

“Amnesty, the way it was done in Brazil, erased the past,” said Nilmário Miranda, a special adviser on memory and truth to Brazil’s human rights ministry, who said he was himself a victim of torture. “It treated perpetrators like their victims, torturers like the tortured.”

Attempts to hold the military responsible for dictatorship-era crimes over the years faced staunch resistance from the military, which continued to hold outsize political sway even after Brazil’s return to democracy.

But now the film has helped initiate perhaps the most significant threat to the impunity the military has been granted.

In December, Justice Flavio Dino cited the film in a ruling to revoke amnesty given to two colonels accused of killing political activists during the dictatorship. “I’m Still Here” has “moved millions of Brazilians,” he wrote. “The story of Rubens Paiva’s disappearance, whose body was never found or given a proper burial, highlights the enduring pain of countless families.”

Justice Dino has endorsed a legal argument that, in any case where bodies are still missing, it is a “permanent crime” open to prosecution until remains are found.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court also decided to review whether it should revoke amnesty in the case of Mr. Paiva. In 2014, Brazilian authorities charged five men with his torture and death; they never confessed to a crime. Two of them are still alive and they have remained mostly silent, with one telling prosecutors he was on vacation during Mr. Paiva’s detention, a claim refuted by documents from that period.

The Supreme Court’s decision in the case could set a legal precedent that could affect at least 41 other dictatorship-era cases.

In a symbolic gesture, a federal body ordered the revision of 434 death certificates for people who were killed or disappeared during the dictatorship. Mr. Paiva’s was the first record to be corrected, from listing no cause of death to citing the cause as “unnatural, violent, caused by the Brazilian state.”

Crediting the film, a special government commission has also reopened a probe into the 1976 death in a car accident of former president Juscelino Kubitschek, citing evidence that it might have been orchestrated by the military dictatorship.

“The role of the film was extraordinary,” Mr. Miranda said. “Art has that power,” he added, to ensure “history is not forgotten, so that it never happens again.”

Mr. Bolsonaro, a retired army captain who has often spoken fondly of the dictatorship, has repeatedly attacked “I’m Still Here,” casting it as a political film that demonizes the military and shows only “one side” of the story.

“I’m not even going to watch that movie of hers,” he said in an interview with The New York Times last month, when asked if he would be rooting for Ms. Torres at Sunday’s Academy Awards.

Some of Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters have similarly boycotted “I’m Still Here” and opposed efforts to bring the military to justice for past crimes.

Mr. Lula, on the other hand, has praised the film, calling it a “source of national pride” and creating an award honoring Eunice Paiva. This week, Brazil’s president gathered government ministers and congressional leaders, as well as two of Mr. Paiva’s grandchildren, at the presidential palace for a special screening.

Yet, even as Brazil reckons with its somber past, some worry that justice may be coming too late. In the decades since Brazil’s return to democracy, many who committed crimes during the dictatorship — including the majority of Mr. Paiva’s torturers — have died without ever being held to account.

“Better late than never,” Marcelo Rubens Paiva said. “But why did it take so long?”

Flávia Milhorance contributed research.