I'm Still Here - Characters & Cast

Initially, her motivation is the survival and protection of her five children. This evolves into an unyielding need for truth and justice regarding her husband's disappearance. She is driven by a refusal to let the state erase his existence and a deep-seated commitment to holding the dictatorship accountable for its crimes, a fight she continues for decades.

Eunice begins as a mother and homemaker in a seemingly perfect family, living a comfortable life. After her husband is forcibly disappeared by the military regime, she undergoes a profound transformation. Enduring imprisonment and psychological torture, she emerges not broken, but fortified with a quiet determination. She moves her family, studies law at age 48, and becomes a leading human rights activist, dedicating her life to finding the truth about her husband and fighting for other victims. Her journey is one from private grief to public resistance, embodying resilience and courage.

His motivation is his unwavering belief in democracy and his opposition to the military dictatorship. He risks his life to help others targeted by the regime, driven by a sense of political duty and justice, even while trying to protect his family from the consequences of his actions.

Rubens is portrayed as a loving father and husband, and a former congressman committed to democracy. Having recently returned from exile, he tries to maintain a normal family life while secretly aiding resistance movements against the dictatorship. His arc is tragically short; he is the catalyst for the story. His abduction and subsequent murder by the state transform him from a political opponent into a symbol of the dictatorship's brutality and one of its thousands of "disappeared" victims.

In this stage, her motivations are internal and fragmented. Her presence serves to motivate the audience's reflection on the film's central themes: the importance of collective memory and the bittersweet nature of a life defined by a battle against forgetting.

Appearing briefly in the film's later timeline, this portrayal of Eunice shows the final, tragic stage of her life. After a lifetime spent fighting to preserve memory, she is now succumbing to Alzheimer's disease, losing her own. Her arc is a poignant coda, highlighting the fragility of memory and the enduring impact of trauma, while also emphasizing the legacy she has built, which now exists independently of her own recollections.