Ahead of the Oscars ceremony, ’s Fernanda Torres – star of Walter Salles’s dictatorship-era movie I’m Still Here – had warned her compatriots not to get into a “World Cup fever” over the Academy Awards.

Her plea went in vain on Sunday night, however, as    – already gathered to celebrate carnival – erupted in joy over Brazil’s first-ever Oscar win, for best international feature.

At the world-famous symbol of Brazilian carnival, the Rio Sambadrome,  when the announcer declared: “The Oscar is ours!”

The  – which tells the true story of Eunice Paiva, whose husband Rubens was forcibly disappeared during Brazil’s dictatorship – did not win the other two awards it was nominated for: best actress and best picture.

But families of the regime’s victims argue that the film – seen by more than 5 million people in Brazil – has given the country something perhaps even more significant than more , as they hope it drives a fundamental shift in how Brazilians confront one of the most brutal periods in their history.

“This is a special moment for the country: the chance to give new meaning to so many things … and finally move forward through justice,” said Leo Alves Vieira, 47, whose grandfather Mário Alves de Souza Vieira was kidnapped, tortured and killed by the army in 1970. De Souza’s body was never found.

“I’m Still Here is the most powerful tool we’ve had so far to fight for this memory,” he said.

Federal prosecutor Eugênia Augusta Gonzaga said that “never before in  has there been such awareness of … the need to continue the work of searching for bodies, uncovering the truth, and holding those responsible to account.”

Gonzaga, the current president of the Commission on Deaths and Disappearances – the government body responsible for establishing the actual cause of death of those killed by the regime – attributes this new interest to both the film and the attempted coup on 8 January 2023 when far-right supporters of former president  stormed the seat of government in Brasília.

The film tells the story of Eunice Paiva’s search for her husband, Rubens, a 41-year-old politician who was taken from his home in 1971 by agents of the dictatorship.

Eunice was a member of the commission when it was first set up in 1995.

The following year, the Brazilian state finally acknowledged her husband’s death – a scene portrayed in the movie, which shows Eunice telling reporters that it is essential to investigate and prosecute all crimes committed during the dictatorship because, “if that does not happen, nothing will stop them from being carried out again with impunity”.

Brazil’s recent past has given the film particular resonance: it was during the Oscars campaign that Bolsonaro – an outspoken admirer of the military – was .

Among the 33 members of his government also implicated were generals and an admiral, marking the first time high-ranking military officers have been charged with attempting a coup in Brazil’s history.

Due to an amnesty law introduced after the 1964–1985 dictatorship, no military personnel were held accountable for more than 400 deaths and disappearances.

“There is a lack of punishment for the torturers,” said Diva Santana, 80, who has been fighting for nearly five decades for the memory of her sister, Dinaelza Santana Coqueiro, who was disappeared by the army in 1973, at the age of 20.

In a move that , the Brazilian Supreme Court recently reopened the debate over whether the amnesty applies to crimes that persist to the present day, such as the concealment of bodies.

The national justice council also decided that the death certificates of victims like Paiva, Vieira and Coqueiro should not only state that they are “disappeared”, but also identify them as victims of a “non-natural, violent  caused by the Brazilian state in the context of the systematic persecution of political dissidents during the dictatorship”.

“The impact of the film and the events of 8 January have shifted the focus on accountability,” said prosecutor Gonzaga. “We’ve already wasted too much time and can’t afford to lose another second.”

Santana said that, after so many years, many of the torturers had already died. But she hoped they, too, would be condemned. “Justice needs to recognise the responsibility of all of them. And those who are still alive need to go to prison and serve time, just like Black and poor people do in Brazil,” she said.
```