Walter Salles’ political drama I’m Still Here (Ainda Estou Aqui, in the original Portuguese) has deservedly earned international acclaim and Oscar nods for its moving portrayal of life under Brazil’s former dictatorship. The movie powerfully depicts the forced disappearance of retired politician Rubens Paiva in 1971, and the effect this turn of events has on his family. It’s anchored by a remarkable performance in the central role of Eunice Paiva, the wife of Rubens and mother of the family, who’s left to pick up the pieces following her husband’s arrest.

What makes I’m Still Here, which recently broke the US box office record for a Brazilian movie, even more powerful is its basis in reality. Salles renders the real story of Eunice Paiva and her family onscreen with meticulous attention to detail. Rubens Paiva really was the subject of a high-profile disappearance case linked to Brazil’s military regime. The movie is based on a memoir by novelist Marcelo Paiva, the son of Rubens and Eunice, about what happened to his family.

I’m Still Here Is Based On The True Story Of The Paiva Family

It Centers On The Disappearance Of Husband And Father Rubens Paiva

Marcelo Paiva’s book of memoirs, also called Ainda Estou Aqui, was published in 2015, and was widely praised for its depiction of the author’s mother as a stoic figure of resilience in the face of brutal authoritarianism. However, the memoir has a broader focus than the Best Picture-nominated movie version of I’m Still Here, with the disappearance of Rubens Paiva only part of its story. What’s more, this part from the perspective of a child who had little knowledge or understanding of what had happened to his father.

In Salles’ film, we see things almost exclusively from the perspective of Eunice Paiva, and her husband’s disappearance is the sole focal point of the story. Nevertheless, the movie doesn’t fictionalize events, remaining faithful both to the account of what happened related in Marcelo’s memoir and retrospective historical records of the family’s ordeal.

What Happened To Rubens Paiva In Real Life

He Was Tortured And Murdered By The Brazilian State

Rubens Paiva was elected as a deputy to the National Congress of Brazil in 1962, as a member of the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB). As I’m Still Here alludes to, Paiva went into exile when his position in congress was revoked following the 1964 military coup d’etat in Brazil, but returned in 1965. He then played a role in facilitating covert correspondence between exiled opponents of the military dictatorship and their family members in Brazil. This correspondence is the contents of the “deliveries” to Paiva’s family home during the movie.

Although he wasn’t directly involved in any political activity or armed struggle against the regime, the channel of communication that Paiva provided for political exiles was enough for the state to suspect him of subversion. He really was arrested at his home in Rio de Janeiro without warning, as we see happen in I’m Still Here, on January 20th 1971. That was the last time any of his family saw him. The film’s postscript is correct to claim that Paiva was killed on the first or second day after his arrest, in army custody.

According to a resolution pᴀssed this year by Brazil’s National Justice Council, his death was “unnatural”, “violent”, and caused by the Brazilian State (via Agência Brasil). Testimonies of other prisoners and military officials stationed at the Center for Internal Defense (DOI-CODI) where Paiva was taken in January 1971 suggest he died from injuries inflicted during acts of torture. As the movie’s postscript explains, his body has never been recovered, and was likely thrown into the sea. A recent BBC report lists those likely responsible for torturing and killing Paiva, none of whom have ever been held accountable for their actions.

What Happened To Eunice Paiva & Her Children

They Had To Carry On Their Lives With Rubens Missing

In I’m Still Here, Eunice Paiva and her daughter Eliana are arrested and taken to the same DOI-CODI location where their father was initially held, in the days after his disappearance. These events happened, and Eunice Paiva was only released from her jail cell 12 days later. We then see Eunice desperately looking for leads about her husband’s whereabouts and physical condition, before she receives the news she’s been dreading. A family friend and political activist informs her that Rubens has been murdered, according to reliable sources from inside the state.

Despite this devastating revelation, Eunice continues to manage her household, keeping the death of her husband secret from their children and encouraging them to smile for pH๏τos. The extent of her stoicism in I’m Still Here feels farfetched, until the real version of a 1971 pH๏τograph featuring Eunice and her children appears at the movie’s end. There, we see the family smiling as if they don’t have a care in the world, even though their husband and father has disappeared off the face of the earth, and Eunice and Eliana have just been released from a torture center.

Rubens wasn’t officially declared ᴅᴇᴀᴅ until 1996, following decades of campaigning by his wife. Because of this issue, the family had no access to his bank accounts, and were forced to rent out their luxurious villa in Rio de Janeiro while moving in with Eunice’s parents in São Paulo.

Eunice, meanwhile, trained as a lawyer, becoming an advocate for the truth about disappearances under Brazil’s military dictatorship, as well as for the rights of indigenous communities. Her son Marcelo suffered a spinal injury in 1979 that left him without the use of his legs. He went on to become an award-winning author, publishing 19 plays for the stage and screen, and 17 books, the fifteenth of which was I’m Still Here.

How Accurate I’m Still Here Is To The True Story

The Movie Matches Reality, Aside From One Important Detail

The adaptation of I’m Still Here, which made record-breaking history at the 2025 Oscars, is painfully accurate in its portrayal of what really happened to Rubens and Eunice Paiva. From the manner of Rubens’ arrest to the press statement Eunice gives upon receiving his death certificate, Salles and screenwriters Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega stick to the true story behind the film. Eunice Paiva lived with Alzheimer’s disease for the final 15 years of her life, just as the film depicts, and died from the condition four years after the moment captured in the final sH๏τ of I’m Still Here.

Still, Hauser and Loreja necessarily take certain liberties with their script, by inventing plausible scenes to fill in one or two important gaps in Eunice Paiva’s story that weren’t recorded before her death. The scene in which Eunice is told that her husband has been killed, for instance, is a fictionalized version of what actually happened. There’s no record of her ever being informed about the death of Rubens in this way, and it’s possible that she was never given a definitive answer about what happened to him until she received his death certificate in 1996.

The details she’s given about Rubens Paiva’s body possibly being thrown into the ocean couldn’t have been related to her in 1971. His body was exhumed and reburied at sea in 1973, according to the testimony of a former army general (via O Globo). I’m Still Here burdens Eunice Paiva with the responsibility of having to hide the certainty of her husband’s death from her children, while bringing them up, earning a living for the family, and studying law. The movie emphasizes her suffering, as the wife who remained tormented by her husband’s disappearance for the rest of her life.

Source: Agência Brasil; BBC; O Globo