The house from Oscar winner I’m Still Here will become a cinema museum

On Sunday night, Brazilian film I’m Still Here was declared the Best International Feature film at the Academy Awards; now, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro has announced that the house at the heart of the film will be bought by the local authorities and transformed into a museum of Brazilian cinema.

The film, called Ainda Estou Aqui in Brazilian Portuguese, follows the one-woman campaign waged by real-life lawyer and humanitarian Eunice Paiva after her husband Rubens is arrested and disappeared by the military dictatorship which ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985. Eunice and Rubens have four daughters and a son, and before he is taken away, the house in which they live is the centrepiece of the film; set in the historic Urca neighbourhood of Rio, it plays host to raucous parties and spirited political debate between the Paivas and their friends and associates. The real-life Rubens Paiva was a civil engineer, and the film also features a longstanding plan by the family to build a new house for themselves on land the Paivas own in Rio; when Rubens is arrested, Eunice is forced to abandon the plans and sell the plot.

The house, on the corner of Rua Roquete Pinto and Avenue João Luiz Alves, will now become a museum after Rio mayor Eduardo Paes announced that his administration plans to buy it; the house is currently valued at 20 million Brazilian reais, or about £2.64 million. “We will make the space that brought Brazil its first Oscar in almost 100 years public and open to visitors,” Paes announced on Instagram. “We will make the house where the film was filmed a permanent memorial to the story of Eunice Paiva and her family, of democracy, and also a tribute to the two great women who make Brazil proud and gave it life – Fernanda Torres and Fernanda Montenegro. The public will also be able to learn about Brazil’s history at the Oscars in interactive exhibits.” In the film, Torres and Montenegro play Eunice Paiva at different points in her life; Montenegro is Torres’s mother in real life.

Since the film’s release, Brazilian newspaper O Globo has reported that the house has become a low-key tourist destination, with visitors to Rio and locals alike making the short trip to Urca from central Rio to take selfies in front of the building. I’m Still Here was nominated for three Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actress for Torres, and Best International Picture. Its win for the latter made it the first Brazilian-produced film ever to win an Academy Award.