Tag Archives: I’m Still Here

Walter Salles to Take Part in Conversations Program at Upcoming Marrakech International Film Festival

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Walter Salles will be opening up at this year’s Marrakech International Film Festival.

The 68-year-old Brazilian filmmaker, best known for his Golden Bear-winning film Central Station, is among the A-listers taking part in the conversations program for the festival’s upcoming 21st edition.

Walter Salles,In all, 18 leading directors, actors, scriptwriters and producers will participate.

Salles is in the middle of a buzzy Oscar campaign for his Best International Feature Film contender I’m Still Here.

Other participating Hollywood A-listers include U.S. director and screenwriter Ava Du Vernay, French Oscar winner Justine Triet and U.S director Tim Burton.

Speakers also include Mohammed Rasoulof, who has Oscar buzz for The Seed Of The Sacred Fig, as well as Canadian director and screenwriter David Cronenberg and U.S. actor-director Sean Penn, who are being feted by the festival with career awards this year.

Moroccan filmmakers Alaa Eddine Aljem, Yasmine Benkiran, Ismaël El Iraki and Kamal Lazraq will be in conversation about their first films.

The Marrakech International Film Festival runs from November 29 to December 7.

Zoe Saldana to Receive Critics Choice Association‘s Groundbreaker Award

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Zoe Saldana is a special Critics Choice honoree… 

The 46-year-old 44-year-old Puerto Rican and Dominican American actress is among the honorees from the Critics Choice Association‘s 4th Annual Celebration of Latino Cinema & Television taking place on October 22, 2024 at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.

Zoë SaldañaSaldaña will receive the Groundbreaker Award for her starring role in Netflix’s Emilia Pérez, which won the Best Actress prize for the ensemble cast at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. 

The Director Award – Film will be awarded to Pablo Larraín for his directorial work on Netflix’s Maria.

The film competed in the Venice Film Festival and was one of the official selections for both the Telluride Film Festival and the New York Film Festival this year.

The Vanguard Award will be given to filmmaker Fede Alvarez for his writing and directorial work in creating 20th Century Studios’ Alien: Romulus.

The film notably earned $45.1 million in its domestic opening weekend at the box office and became the highest grossing horror film in IMAX history.

Emmy-nominated director, writer and producer Issa López will receive The Director Award – Series for her directorial work on the HBO Original Series True Detective: Night Country.

The series received 19 Emmy nominations, the most for any limited or anthology series this year and won star Jodie Foster the award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for a Limited Series, Anthology, or Television Movie.

The Showrunner Award will recognize Emmy-nominated television writer and producer Francesca Sloane for her work on Prime Video’s series Mr. & Mrs. Smith. The series was nominated 16 times at this year’s Emmys and was awarded two wins.

Oscar and Emmy-nominated actress Adriana Barraza will be honored with the Actress Award – Film for her role in Roadside Attractions’ film My Penguin Friend.

Barraza previously earned an Academy Award nomination in 2007 for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s film Babel and just received a 2024 International Emmy nomination for Best Actress for her work in the award-winning Netflix film El último vagón.

Actress and writer Fernanda Torres will receive the Actress Award – International Film for her role in Sony Pictures Classics’ film I’m Still Here, which notably garnered the Best Screenplay award at this year’s Venice Film Festival and has been selected as Brazil’s 2024 submission for Best International Feature Film at the Oscars.

Emayatzy Corinealdi will accept the Actress Award – Series for her performance on Hulu/Onyx Collective’s Reasonable Doubt.

Corinealdi also recently appeared in the HBO series Ballers and in the Miles Davis biopic Miles Ahead. STARZ will bestow Emayatzy Corinealdi’s award with a special STARZ #TakeTheLead designation as part of its ongoing commitment to amplifying narratives by, about, and for women and underrepresented audiences.

Ramón Rodríguez will be awarded with the Breakthrough Actor Award – Series for his starring role in the ABC series Will Trent.

Rodríguez was also nominated in the Best Actor in a Drama Series category for season one at last year’s Critics Choice Awards.

The Comedy Series Award will be bestowed upon the acclaimed Apple TV+ series Acapulco, starring Emmy-winner Eugenio Derbez, Enrique Arrizon, Fernando Carsa, and Camila Perez.

The International Series Award will recognize the Apple TV+ Spanish-language drama series Familia de Medianoche, which features an entirely Latino cast and crew led by performers Renata Vaca, Joaquín Cosío, and Diego Calva.

The Celebration honors standout performances and work, both onscreen and offscreen from the Latino entertainment community.

Mariana Lima to Star in Walter Salles-Directed Film “I’m Still Here”

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Mariana Lima is still here…

The 48-year-old Brazilian actress will star in I’m Still Here, which will be directed by Walter Salles.

Mariana Lima

The film is based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s best-selling memoir about his mother Eunice Paiva, a housewife forced to reinvent herself as an activist when her husband fell victim to the military regime that took control of Brazil in 1964. Her husband became among many who were tortured and disappeared with no due process.

Lima, one of Brazil’s most acclaimed actresses with credits that include Dark Days and Father’s Chair, will play Paiva.

Murilo Hauser scripted the 2019 Un Certain Regard winning-Invisible Life, adapted the screenplay, with Salles overseeing the development process.

The film is set to begin production in Brazil early next year, with Library Pictures International providing financing. CAA Media Finance will broker domestic distribution while Wild Bunch is handling international sales, excluding Brazil.

The author was 11 when his father, leftist congressman Rubens Paiva, was dragged off for interrogation by the military, this after he returned from exile. He was never seen again. His wife campaigned relentlessly to find his whereabouts, at a very dangerous time when Brazilian was controlled by military dictatorship. Eunice Paiva was arrested along with her husband and held in a dark cell for 12 days before taking on her new role, which would become a race against Alzheimer’s Disease. While she was still able, she got to the bottom of her husband’s disappearance and made sure the records of events were recorded to be shared with future generations. It was concluded by the National Truth Commission that her husband had been tortured to death for receiving letters from leftist organizations. The tragic history of torture in Brazil came to light recently when Brazil president Jair Bolsonaro waxed nostalgic for the days when the military dictatorship was in place, much to the outrage of many.

“Most of my personal projects required very long development processes, back to Central Station, which was five years, and Motorcycle Diaries was four,” Salles said. “None took as much time as this one that I in part was a witness to when I was 13 years old,”

Salles said he prepped I’m Still Here in relative secrecy, he knew from moment one that he wanted Lima for his protagonist.

“Mariana is an extraordinary theater actress, and one of the most sensitive film actresses of her generation in Brazil,” Salles said. “We’ve talked about collaborating, but I waited to find the role that could truly benefit from her extraordinary talent to give birth to this character. I thought of her since the very beginning, because of her unique talent and the economy she has in transmitting the emotional core of a character and a story. [Eunice Paiva] had to build an internal fortress to survive, but you could sense the trauma she went through. Marina is the actress to best portray this role. I most like movies where the arc of the main character somehow reflects the arc of the country itself as it goes through a specific period of time and tries to determine what it wants to be,” he said. “We had that in Central Station, and we have it here.

“Having known Eunice, her husband and her children, makes this is a very unique project to me,” Salles said. “I never came so close to my own life experience in a movie than this. In that sense, it feels a little like my Roma, in terms of the personal nature of Alfonso Cuaron’s film which I love so much.”