Oscars 2025: ‘I’m Still Here’ wins ‘Best International Feature’
Ever since the nominations for this year’s Oscars were announced, it always looked as though ‘Best International Feature’ would boil down to a two-horse race between I’m Still Here, and Emilia Pérez and that proved to be right on the money after Walter Salles’ film emerged victorious.
While Jacques Audiard’s musical crime drama seized most of the headlines by securing a record-breaking amount of nominations for a foreign-language film, Salles’ political biopic has been quietly humming along in the background, earning a great deal more acclaim than the polarising Netflix original.
After winning the Golden Globe and Bafta in the corresponding category, Emilia Pérez was presumed to be a lock for ‘Best International Feature’, despite I’m Still Here‘s Fernanda Torres picking up a Golden Globe for ‘Best Actress – Drama’ to cast some doubt over the outcome.
However, Salles’ moving and powerful story is inarguably the better of the two, and the filmmaker fully deserved to take home the trophy for a poignant and moving portrait of one family trying to make sense of the upheaval that affected an entire nation.
Anchored by a standout performance from Fernanda Torres, the actor’s Eunice Pavia seeks to find out the truth surrounding her husband’s disappearance, plunging her into the midst of a socio-political maelstrom while also trying desperately to keep her crumbling family together.
No offence intended to Latvia’s animated fantasy Flow, Denmark’s period-set psychological horror The Girl with the Needle, or Germany’s political drama The Seed of the Sacred Fig, but none of them were considered realistic contenders when so much of the focus had fallen on the French and Brazilian entries.
Of course, Academy voters may have been soured or swayed by the controversy that surrounded Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón, with the backlash stemming from her social media posts widely assumed to have shot the film in the foot when it came to competing for the biggest Oscars on offer, but at the end of the day, the remit is to award the honour to the most deserving feature, and there will be no arguments over I’m Still Here winning the Oscar.
Never Miss A Scene
The Far Out Film Newsletter
All the latest film news from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.