Fernanda Torres Lands Brazil’s First Acting Oscar Nomination Since Her Mother’s 1999 Nod ​on January 23, 2025 at 2:44 pm

Fernanda Torres landed a Best Actress nomination this morning from the American Academy for her leading turn in Walter Salles’s latest I’m Still Here. 

Torres is only the second Brazilian actress to receive an Oscar nomination. The first was her mother, Fernanda Montenegro, who was nominated in 1999 for Central Station, also directed by Salles. 

I’m Still Here was co-written by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega and is based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s memoir of the same name set during Brazil’s military dictatorship in the early 1970s. The central figure is Paiva’s mom Eunice, a mother of five who is forced to reinvent herself and her family after her husband Rubens, a politician and engineer who opposed the regime, became one of the government’s desaparecidos (the disappeared), and was tortured and killed.

Sony Pictures Classics, which also released Central Station, acquired I’m Still Here out of the Cannes market and world premiered it at Venice, where it got a 10-minute ovation and won Salles the director prize and Hauser and Lorega the screenplay prize. It has become a box office hit in Brazil, grossing over $10 million in the home market, making it the year’s top title there. The film hit U.S. theaters via SPC on January 17 after picking up a pair of Golden Globe nominations for International Film and Best Actress for Torres. She ended up winning that award too. 

I’m Still Here landed three overall nominations this morning. The other two were in Best Picture and International Feature. In other parental-related Oscar news, Isabella Rossellini landed her first Oscar nomination in Best Supporting Actress for Conclave. Rossellini’s mother Ingrid Bergman won the same award in 1975 for Murder on the Orient Express.