But the film has found a resonance in the present as well as the past, because Brazil is struggling with the benefits of a modern coup attempt.
Last month, President Lula marked the second anniversary of a riot in the three powers of Brasilia, where the demonstrators hoped to trigger another military uprising.
Thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro went down to the square on January 8, 2023, just a week after Lula took office for a third non -consecutive term.
There, the rioters ransacked the Supreme Court, the National Congress Building and the Presidential Palace in Brasilia, faced with security agents. Police said violence was part of a several -part attempt to oust Lula and return Bolsonaro to power.
Lucas Figueiredo, journalist and author of several books on the dictatorship, believes that the lack of conscience of the past has enabled many Brazilians to romantic the era of the military regime.
“To date, the army considers itself as having the right to try a coup in the 21st century. This is a wide proof that no memory has been made up of these events, ”said Figueiredo.
Former army captain, Bolsonaro publicly defended the military dictatorship and expressed his nostalgia for this period.
During his presidency, from 2019 to 2022, he also emptied the Commission of Amnesty and the Special Commission on Dead and Political Disappearances – two panels designed to document and respond to human rights violations of the past.
Asked about the film that I am still there, Bolsonaro told a Bloomberg journalist: “I’m not going to waste my time.”
Figueiredo believes that the fact that no official was punished for their role in the military dictatorship has contributed to fueling current disorders.
“This has created an impunity dynamic that promotes attitudes like those we saw on January 8,” said Figueiredo.
But Marcia Carneiro, who teaches history at Fluminense Federal University, observed that the feeling of impunity can be discolored, given the pressure to hold Bolsonaro and its responsible allies.
On February 18, the main prosecutor of Brazil, Paulo Gonet, filed charges against Bolsonaro and 33 other people, accusing them of plotting to overthrow the government. Bolsonaro could incur decades in prison in the event of a conviction.
“There is a new emerging consciousness that those who act against the rule of law can be punished. It’s interesting and new in Brazil, ”said Carneiro.
If Bolsonaro had been in power, Carneiro thinks that the film that I am always here can have been welcomed with demonstrations and even attacks.
She pointed out that, under Bolsonaro in 2019, the demonstrators launched Molotov cocktails at the headquarters of the comedy group Porta Dos Fundos, following a short Christmas film on Netflix which depicts Jesus as Gay.
But even the film’s policy may have blurred some of the right -wing criticism. I am still there, intimately focus on the power of the family, sketching an idyllic family life disturbed by violence.
Experts say that his emphasis on family dynamics on politics made him attractive for a large audience.
“Everyone has a family – a mother, a father – and is touched when she sees them suffer. Viewers recognize the possibility of something like it happens in their house, “said Carneiro.
