25 years ago, Fernanda Montenegro lost the Oscar and Brazil suffered its most painful defeat

Brazil has come close to the Oscars a few times, but has never been honored with a statuette from cinema’s biggest award. In 1960, Black Orpheus (1959), filmed in Brazil, with Brazilian actors and spoken in Portuguese, won the award, but the statuette went to France. In 1982, Pixote: The Law of the Weakest (1980), from Héctor Babenco (1946-2016), was disqualified before he even had his chance.

However, it was in 1999 that Brazil suffered its most painful defeat. That year, Brazil competed for the fourth time for the Best Foreign Film award for Central Brazil (1998), feature film Walter Salles (On the road). But all eyes were on an even bigger event: Fernanda Montenegro she had been nominated for the Best Actress category for her performance in the film.

In Central Brazilshe played Doraa bitter former teacher, who makes a living writing letters to illiterate people and sees her life change after one of her clients dies in a traffic accident and she needs to help her son, Josue (Vinícius de Oliveira, Basic Unit), nine years old, meeting the father he never knew.

In addition to being a success in Brazilian cinemas, Central Brazil also conquered the world. Described as a production “small, modest, not trying to be huge”, Fernanda Montenegro revealed that he believes that chance ended up taking the film to travel around the globe:

“But chance always has the last word. This is a basic phrase of [escritora e filósofa] Simone de Beauvoir, and chance made this film go around the world. And wherever he went, he was well received”said in an interview with Simone Zucolottofor the Channel Brazilin April 2023.

For the job, Fernanda Montenegro won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival, in addition to being nominated for the Golden Globe and the Satellite Awards, among many other awards, before securing a place among the nominees for Best Actress at the 71st edition of the Oscars, which took place on March 21, 1999.

With the nomination, the actress became the first Latin American, the first Brazilian – and, to date, the only – and the first – and only – actress nominated for a performance in Portuguese in the history of the Oscars. Unfortunately, despite her historic achievements, the actress ended up losing the golden statuette to Gwyneth Paltrowper Shakespeare in Love(1998).

Years after the defeat, Fernanda Montenegro commented that the lack of awards for the film – which also did not win the Best Foreign Film category, now known as Best International Film – does not diminish its importance:

“Awards sometimes come. Sometimes no. The timing of that Oscar was unexpected. And? The film of Walter Salles remains a wonderful ‘non-Oscar’. Life went on. Life goes on”told the magazine Look.

In October 2023, more than twenty years after winning the Oscar for Best Actress, Gwyneth Paltrow He generated outrage among Brazilians when he stated that he uses the statuette as a doorstop and had to deny the information, saying that his comment was nothing more than a joke.

Who wins Best Actress at the 2024 Oscars? Vote for your favorite!

• Annette Bening, by NYAD
• Lily Gladstone, for Killers of the Flower Moon
• Sandra Hüller, for Anatomy of a Fall
• Carey Mulligan, by Maestro
• Emma Stone, for Poor Creatures