Brazil has won its first Oscar for international feature for I’m Still Here, the story of a family broken apart amid a dictatorship. Notably, the feature edged out France’s Emilia Pérez, which took home multiple Oscars earlier in the evening.

Director Walter Salles credited the woman who inspired the film — Eunice Paiva — and the women who brought her to life, daughter-mother pair Fernanda Torres and Fernanda Montenegro.

“This goes for a woman who, after a loss suffered during an authoritarian regime, decided not to bend — and to resist. So this prize goes to her. Her name is Eunice Paiva,” Salles said to massive applause, including from star Torres.

I’m Still Here, also nominated for best picture, tells the real-life story of a mother of five children who reinvents herself as a lawyer and activist after the devastating disappearance of her political dissident husband at the height of Brazil’s military dictatorship.