SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s Carnival muse this yr is not one of many divas or drum queens parading with the Rio de Janeiro samba faculties. It is Fernanda Torres, who’s competing for the perfect actress Oscar on Sunday.
The Oscars fall smack in the midst of Carnival, Brazil’s largest celebration, which runs by means of Tuesday. Through the five-day revelry, the remainder of the universe normally fades into the background as Brazilians lower free and indulge.
Not this yr, and the eager concentrate on the Oscars speaks to Brazil’s satisfaction for its tradition and need to be acknowledged on the worldwide stage.
“Simply think about, her successful the Oscar on Carnival Sunday. It’ll be a double celebration,” Clarissa Salles, 33, instructed The Related Press whereas shopping for a reproduction Oscar statuette in Sao Paulo for her costume.
Torres is nominated for her efficiency because the lead within the Walter Salles-directed “I’m Still Here,” which can be nominated for finest image and finest worldwide function. Pleasure across the awards has prompted TV Globo, Brazil’s largest community, to renew stay protection of the ceremony after a five-year hiatus. It’ll forgo the nationwide airing of high-ratings Carnival parades, as a substitute broadcasting the Oscars in every single place besides Rio.
Bars and nightclubs throughout Brazil are organizing Oscar watch events and outcomes will even be proven on a giant display to the tens of hundreds of spectators gathered at Rio’s Sambadrome for the parades.
“Today, all of Brazil only thinks about this,” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated on his social media channels. “Everybody is cheering for ‘I’m Still Here’ and Fernanda Torres at the Oscars.”
As far-off because the Amazon, an Indigenous neighborhood within the Inhaa-be village promoted a screening of the movie on Friday. With singing and barefoot dance, the group made up principally of girls carried out their battle ritual adopted by their victory ritual.
“We dance around the people, positioning our thoughts and emotions so that this energy can reach where it needs to go, which is to Fernanda Torres,” shaman A-yá Kukamíria stated.
At one level, she fanned smoke over an indication that includes the golden statuette and the phrases: “The Oscar is ours!”
‘A Movement’
Masks of Torres’ face, plus T-shirts and caps that includes her response to her Golden Globe nomination — “Life is worth it!” — are in every single place. The phrase appeared on a banner at Cordao do Boitata, one among Rio’s most conventional avenue events.
She has even impressed complete Carnival avenue events paying her tribute. Final Sunday, revelers in Rio carried a banner saying “Fernanda Torres’ Impersonators” whereas dressed as a few of her beloved TV characters.
“That’s peak fame in Brazil — to become a Carnival costume,” Torres stated Feb. 10 on the Santa Barbara Movie Pageant. “I see a lot of me in the streets. I’m proud.”
And plastic Oscar statuettes are flying off retailers’ cabinets.
The Torres craze is “a feeling, a movement,” and an Oscar win can be just like the nationwide soccer group lifting a World Cup trophy, feminist author Milly Lacombe, who chronicles sports activities and tradition, stated.
“Fractured by political divisions, Brazilians were thirsty for something that could unite them,” Lacombe stated. “We didn’t know where it would come from. And it came from a very unexpected place — the Brazilian film industry.”
From TV roles to Oscar glory
Since its November launch within the nation, “I’m Still Here” has drawn over 5 million Brazilians to theaters. Final week, the movie was nonetheless topping the Brazilian field workplace, second solely to Marvel’s most up-to-date “Captain America.”
It has gained plaudits and awards overseas whereas, again house, it sparked a long-overdue reflection on the trauma and legacy of the army dictatorship that dominated Brazil for greater than 20 years.
Torres stars as Eunice Paiva, the matriarch of an upper-class Rio household shattered by the dictatorship. In 1971, her husband, Rubens Paiva, a former leftist congressman, was taken into custody by the army and by no means seen once more. Based mostly on a guide by their son, Marcelo Rubens Paiva, the story follows Eunice’s lifelong pursuit of justice, by getting the federal government to confess that her husband died.
Torres, 59, first gained nationwide recognition as a young person appearing in telenovelas. At 19, she turned the primary Brazilian to win finest actress at Cannes for “Love Me Forever or Never.” Her success continued in theater and flicks as she cemented her fame in sitcoms like “Os Normais” (Regular Individuals) and “Tapas e Beijos” (Slaps and Kisses).
Her dramatic efficiency in “I’m Still Here” has reshaped public notion, shocking many along with her depth and restrained efficiency, protecting her grief, anguish and despair simmering simply beneath the floor. The movie’s success — and her Golden Globe win — additionally despatched viewership of her previous sitcoms on TV Globo’s streaming platform by means of the roof, based on the community. And Torres’ scenes in these reveals have been repurposed for numerous viral memes forward of the Oscars.
Candy Justice?
To grasp why Torres’ Oscar probabilities have ignited pleasure in Brazil, one should first look to her mom, Fernanda Montenegro, 95, who seems as an getting older Eunice Paiva within the movie’s ultimate scenes.
Montenegro is a nationwide appearing legend — Brazil’s Meryl Streep — who was a finest actress Oscar nominee in 1999 for “Central Station.” The award as a substitute went to Gwyneth Paltrow for “Shakespeare In Love” and lots of Brazilians ever since have harbored the assumption that Montenegro was robbed.
“As the firstborn child of the reluctantly titled ‘Grande Dame of Brazilian Theater,’ Fernanda Montenegro, it seemed Fernanda Torres had little professional choice. Surprisingly, she forged her own path,” stated journalist Pedro Bial, host of a prestigious late-night present on TV Globo, who was married to Torres within the Eighties.
“‘I’m Still Here’ is her most significant cinematic role and it surprised some of her fans who were used to her comedic style,” Bial added. “Brazilians now hope the Oscar will bring sweet justice, 25 years after her mother’s heartbreaking loss.”
A nation’s need to be seen
No Brazilian has ever gained finest actor or finest actress. To some extent, Torres’ worldwide recognition is taking part in into some Brazilians’ need for overseas validation of their greatness, based on Lacombe, the tradition author. It’s a sentiment that has surfaced every now and then in soccer, with Pelé, or in System One racing, with Ayrton Senna.
“We want to show that we exist, we deserve respect, and that what we create here is exceptional. Our culture is unparalleled,” Lacombe stated.
Torres acknowledged that aspect of the Brazilian psyche in a November interview.
“Brazil has this ‘mongrel complex,’ this lack of communication with the world, but at the same time, it pities the world for not knowing what we know,” the actress instructed native information web site UOL. “When someone breaks through that barrier and takes something deeply personal to us abroad, there’s this feeling of, ‘Look at what we have, look at how rich our culture is.’”
Clara Novais, a 33-year-old journalist and social media influencer who posts content material about Carnival, sees in Torres a “modern, daring woman.”
On Sunday, Novais will social gathering on the conventional Carnival in Olinda, in northeastern Brazil, sporting an Oscar statuette-inspired costume and celebrating Torres’ achievement.
“She shows that it’s possible to do culture, entertainment, politics, and history all at once — drawing laughs while informing,” Novais stated. “I think Carnival is all of that, just like Fernanda.”
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Maycron Abade and Thiago Mostazo contributed from Sao Paulo, Diarlei Rodrigues from Rio de Janeiro and Fernando Crispim from Manaus, Brazil.
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For extra protection of the Oscars, go to https://apnews.com/hub/academy-awards.
