The historic 1985 trial against the military junta in power in Argentina from 1976 to 1983 is at the heart ofArgentina, 1985highly acclaimed on Saturday at the Venice International Film Festival, where he is competing for the Golden Lion.
For his fifth feature film, Argentine filmmaker Santiago Miter returned to this dark period in the history of his country by following in the footsteps of the prosecutor in charge of the prosecution, Julio Strassera, played by Ricardo Darin, and his assistant Luis Moreno Ocampo (Peter Lanzani).
“I still remember the day when Strassera read his indictment: the noise in the court, the emotion of my parents, the streets finally able to celebrate something that was not a football match, the idea of justice as an act of healing”, explained Santiago Mitre, winner in 2015 of the Critics’ Week grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival with Paulina.
Most of the film does not take place in the courtroom, but focuses on the genesis of the trial and the obstacles encountered by the investigators, faced with threats against themselves and their loved ones.
“This story touched me deeply and made me want to make a film about justice […] based on facts that actually happened,” said the filmmaker.
Humor and self-mockery are never far away in this opus which is careful not to make heroes of its protagonists, while the majority of the country remained passive under the dictatorship. “Heroes don’t exist”, slices the prosecutor Strassera in front of his wife.
The testimonies of the victims recounting the horrors suffered, in particular that of a woman forced to give birth handcuffed aboard the car of her torturers, are heartbreaking.
According to human rights organizations, some 30,000 people disappeared under the Argentine dictatorship. 400 babies born in captivity have been illegally handed over to other people, according to the organization of the Grandmothers of the Place de Mai, which fights for the missing.
Since the dictatorship’s trials resumed in the mid-2000s — after more than a decade of controversial amnesty measures and laws — some 1,060 people have been convicted of crimes against humanity.
Argentinian justice again sentenced 10 former soldiers and police officers to life imprisonment in early July for homicides, kidnappings, torture and rape.