In crafting the story of “I’m Still Here,” which chronicles the forced disappearance of a husband and father during the military dictatorship in Brazil, filmmaker Walter Salles didn’t have to imagine much: Growing up in Rio de Janeiro, Salles was close with the man’s family. “I had a very personal link to the story,” he told TheWrap Editor-in-Chief Sharon Waxman. “When I was 13 years old, I [knew] this family at the heart of the film.”
That family is the Paivas. In 1971, the regime that was in power from 1964 to 1985 arrested patriarch Rubens Pavia in his home on suspicion of political dissidence.