Pre-Recorded Artist Talk: Walter Salles // I'M STILL HERE

Before the screening of I’M STILL HERE on NOV 11 at Cinemateket, a pre-recorded director’s conversation with Walter Salles will be shown.

The conversation is moderated by Karsten Meinich from Montages.no and offers a deep dive into the filmmaker’s career. Walter Salles is highlighted as the main profile of this year’s festival, which also includes a retrospective of selected films at Cinemateket in Oslo.

Walter Salles – The Great Storyteller of Brazil

Walter Salles is one of the most prominent filmmakers from the Latin American continent. With his latest film, I’m Still Here (Fremdeles her), which this year earned Fernanda Torres an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, he presents a period drama from Brazil’s junta era that strikes like a hammer—at a time when democracies around the world are under significant pressure.

Salles is the main profile of the 35th edition of the festival. His new film competes for the festival’s top prize, the Silver Mirror, and we honor him with a retrospective showcasing the major highlights of his career.

At Cosmopolite Scene, the premiere will be marked by a specially commissioned musical performance inspired by the film, written and performed by a Norwegian-Brazilian ensemble led by Bugge Wesseltoft. The cinematic journey begins with Foreign Land, also starring Fernanda Torres, and continues with classics such as Central Station, Midnight, and The Motorcycle Diaries—all films that have reached a wide international audience. With I’m Still Here, Salles demonstrates his full range, creating a film that speaks powerfully to the present through a story set in the past.

The film is part of the festival’s anniversary project “An Ode to the Missing”, which explores the anatomy of dictatorship and the people who disappear under repressive regimes. The methods used to silence opposition have evolved since the junta era in Latin America—becoming far more sophisticated and frightening in our time. Films from the South looks back, opens the debate, and raises the discussion about what lies ahead. With his new film, Walter Salles offers a stark warning against the kind of past we must never return to.

Welcome to a unique encounter with master filmmaker Walter Salles.