«My Oscar-worthy Argentina in that trial of the generals. It is impossible to detach yourself emotionally from this film»»- Corriere.it

Argentina, 1985 it got ovations at the Venice Film Festival, won the Golden Globe, entered the short list of the Oscars for best foreign film. It’s the trial of Videla and his goons, members of his government (now on screens thanks to Lucky Red). Director Santiago Miter. Was it easy to make this film? No not at all. My country divided, there is social hatred, political tensions. I wanted to demonstrate that people, when they come together, can achieve profound change. Today it seems impossible to succeed.

The Argentine military had not disappeared, they still exerted influence during the first fragile democracy that followed the bloody dictatorship. They were still very dangerous, there were one coup after another, no government reached the end of its mandate. The judicial system had to take all of this into account: the people who demanded justice, and the military who sought a way out.

They documented hundreds of cases of murders, arrests, tortures, disappearances. There were convictions, but the prosecutor Julio Strassera (played by the great actor Ricardo Darin), who had surrounded himself with an uncorrupted and untainted young team, spoke of a half victory. It was David versus Goliath. Not all requests for conviction were accepted, but the pillars of justice were put in place. At the time of the trial he was five years old and doesn’t remember anything. Growing up, my mother who worked at the Ministry of Justice told me about it. In the film it is defined as the most important trial after the Nuremberg trial against the Nazis. It is something that was said at the time. For me, they are incomparable events. This is a civilian trial within a country that puts the military on trial.

He says that by attending screenings in so many countries, we realized that concerns about freedom issues are shared. At the same time I understood that the new generations in Argentina, although it is a subject of study in school, ignore what happened and do not know how important that process was to restore democracy. That not the perfect system, but the best we have. Many young people are questioning popular sovereignty and this makes me sad if we think of those who fought for it. Maybe now thanks to my trial thriller a subject that is talked about in the house. But I do not pretend to teach anyone anything.

Did that process heal the wounds? I don’t know: I know why he traced a paradigm between before and after. The film has its hero, Judge Strassera, who until then hadn’t been a champion of justice, nor a mirrored past, had a gray attitude, rejected investigations, wasn’t brave enough, perhaps feared ending up as one of the 30 thousand disappeared. But his closing argument, when he said that sadism is not a political strategy but a moral perversion, puts an end to the shadows of his past, the best anti-fascist speech he has ever heard.

What distinguishes this film from others on judicial cases is a tone that may seem lateral but the added value: lightness, hilarity, the jokes that emerge at times. They were in the hundreds of recordings I’ve listened to, occasionally Strassera (passing by to be grumpy and grouchy) and his team would just chuckle. Maybe it was a self-defense mechanism. So I inserted several funny moments, also for fear of a film that was too dark. The sources? The records of the court, the judges and officials of the ministry, the witnesses, the families of the victims. The searches were long and painful. I knew many of them would see the film, I felt the responsibility.

Santiago, difficult to emotionally detach from this film? She half smiles: It’s almost impossible.