San Francisco Frontiers - Documentary brings Argentine 'death flights' to the big screen

They had gathered in Buenos Aires for one of the first domestic screenings of "Traslados" ("Transferred") -- an investigative documentary on a very dark chapter of the South American country's not-too distant history.

The title refers to prisoners -- activists and others viewed as enemies of the military junta -- who were rounded up on the pretext of being "transferred," then loaded into planes and thrown out over the River Plate, some already dead but many still alive.

Many were tortured before.

There are still large gaps in what is known about the flights, including the identities of many of the victims.

The new film "puts evidence on the table, brings together all the pieces and everything known... about the 'death flights,'" director Nicolas Gil Lavedra told AFP ahead of the screening in Buenos Aires.

The documentary includes dramatized reenactments based on testimonies from dictatorship survivors, the work of researchers and archival material.

"There are no partisan or subjective opinions, there are facts and there is evidence," insisted Lavedra.

He said the 90-minute feature was mainly aimed at people born after the dictatorship under which about 30,000 people were killed or disappeared, according to rights groups.

"I think it's essential for young people today to know what happened," Octavia Ortuno, a 24-year-old Bolivian psychology student at the University of Buenos Aires, told AFP after the screening.

- 'Justice, truth and memory' -

"Traslados" will be shown at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain next Tuesday.

This comes as the sector reels from deep budget cuts inflicted by self-declared "anarcho capitalist" President Javier Milei.

A central theme of "Traslados" is the fate of Esther Ballestrino, Azucena Villaflor and Maria Ponce -- the founders of the "Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo" group fighting for answers on the fate of the disappeared.

They were kidnapped along with French nuns Alice Domon and Leonie Duquet and seven other activists, and thrown from a plane on the night of December 14, 1977, according to a reconstruction of events.

The 12 were identified by a former marine, Alfredo Astiz, who had infiltrated the "Mothers of Plaza de Mayo" and is serving life imprisonment for his role in the deaths.

In July this year, a group of lawmakers from Milei's party visited Astiz and others convicted of crimes against humanity in prison, an event that created an uproar in the country.

"This documentary shows that they are criminals serving a sentence for crimes against humanity," said Lavedra.

The filmmaker, who had previously made a film about human rights activist Estela de Carlotto -- president of the "Mothers" group -- is the son of a judge who had presided over post-dictatorship trials.

For him, the after-effects of Argentina's dark past can only be overcome "by having a collective memory. The whole society has to understand that the dictatorship was state terrorism and we all have to condemn it.

"The only way we have to heal that wound is with justice, truth and memory," said Lavedra.

Argentina's dictatorship was one of the most brutal of the slew of military regimes that sowed terror in Latin America from the 1960s through the 1980s.

Milei, however, has questioned the number of disappeared, raising the ire of many Argentines.

Leaving the screening of "Traslados" last week, Victor Fuks, 74, told AFP the film had touched him "in a very special way."

He had fled to Spain in 1977 to escape the dictatorship, as "a lot of friends, colleagues... were disappearing."

P.Adams--SFF