Epigraph 1: The writer Jose Murillo nicknamed Inés as “the most beautiful bird in our country”. Credits: Fifth Estate
“The job of looking for Inés” is a film based on the investigation of the case of Ines Ollero. This young woman was detained in the Navy Mechanics School (ESMA)where she was last seen alive. The film will premiere on the platform KINOA.TV on Tuesday, July 19, 45 years after his disappearance.
In addition, on Sunday, July 17, a special day will be held. At 6:00 p.m., the film can be seen in a special screening at the Cultural Center of Memory Haroldo Conti of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (CABA).
It will be attended by relatives and friends of the young woman. A guided tour of the ESMA Memory Site Museum at 4:00 p.m. Tickets can be booked to see it. here.
In the documentary, her relatives tell the story of Inés. In addition, personalities involved in matters related to human rights in Argentina. they are Nora Cortinas (Mother of Plaza de Mayo) and Adolfo Perez Esquivel (reward Peace Nobel). Also present is the word Eugenio Zaffaronithe judge who investigated the case in the late 1970s.
Anahi Carballido Marza, psychoanalyst and writer, makes her debut as a film director in this film. She claimed that the story of Cesar Ollero, Inés’ father, moved her. She “she abandoned any other activity to dedicate herself full time to the search for her daughter. (…) It was the voice that she was screaming to be heard.”
Ines’s story potter
Ines Ollero is one of the 30,000 people who disappeared in the last Argentine military dictatorship. In 1985, two former detainees would say at the trial of the former commanders of the junta that they had seen her alive at the ESMA.
His case was a legal exception in the context of genocide and state terrorism in Argentina between 1976 and 1983. His father, César Ollero, and his lawyer, Jaime NuguerThey took the investigation to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in 1979, when the dictatorship had not yet ended. These testimonies were fundamental in the Trials of the Military Juntas and in the ESMA Megacause.
But… what happened to Inés Ollero?
In 1977, the young woman was 21 years old. She was a third-year biology student at Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences of the Buenos Aires’ University (UBA). He was also a member of the Communist Youth Federation from the porteño neighborhood of Almagro.
On July 19 of that year, Inés got on a bus from the line 187. At 10:10 p.m., military forces intercepted the bus when it arrived at its stop on Av. Constituyentes. They transferred the fifteen passengers and the driver to sectional 49 of the Federal policehalfway to the ESMA.
That morning they freed almost everyone, except Inés. César, her father, began a search that would mark the rest of his life. After collecting testimonies from those who traveled that night on the bus, he understood what was happening with his daughter.
Together with his lawyer, Jaime Nuguer, he initiated legal actions to change the figure of “disappeared” for a detainee “at the disposal of the Executive power”. However, no agency responded about the whereabouts of Inés.
An informant disclosed the presence of the young woman in the detention center that operated in the ESMA. In a great act of courage, César Ollero met four times with the repressor and director of the establishment, the Vice Admiral Ruben Chamorro. But he did not obtain data from his daughter.
The path in Justice
“The first thing, in those cases, is whitening. To go from kidnapped to prisoner”, explained César Ollero to Page 12 in 2003. He was referring to the decision that led him to demand that the Argentine justice system investigate the whereabouts of his daughter.
The man then presented a habeas corpus that reached the hands of Judge Eugenio Zaffaroni. “(He) helped me for four years; and his work served to investigate the School of Mechanics of the Navy”, he stated to the same communication medium.
The 35 policemen from section 49 who worked on July 19 and 20, 1977 appeared in the case. They were also arrested at the police station, the bus driver and his passengers. The police testimonies indicated that this area was used as an operations center for ESMA controls.
By exhausting all judicial instances in ArgentinaCésar Ollero turned to the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights. In 1979, the organization demanded from the Argentine Government information on the whereabouts of Inés Ollero.
The response of those responsible for the Argentine dictatorship was desperate. In a note dated March 25, 1980, they acknowledged: “The aforementioned Miss OLLERO, on 07/19/77, was on her way in a bus on line 187, presumably to her home, when she was arrested at the intersection of Albarellos streets and Constituents, in the jurisdiction of the Federal Capital, in order to carry out a routine traffic control.”
“When starting this task, they found inside it, propaganda pamphlets from a terrorist organization.” With that qualifier they were referring to the press of the party for which Inés militated. “Unable to determine the owner of the same, the entire passenger was taken to the police section, with jurisdiction of the area, in order to investigate the fact.”
And the conclusion, as in many cases, sought to blame the victim. “She was an active member of a youth organization of the extreme left, from which many members have left and later joined terrorist gangs.” For this reason, they did not rule out that “fearing that a deeper investigation (…) has decided, in order to avoid possible legal action, to voluntarily absent themselves and/or go underground.”
The reconstruction of a story
César Ollero had an ice cream shop, but in 1977 he left his job aside. “With Inés I lowered the curtain,” he said in 2003 to Page 12. “I had to dedicate myself to her.” Searching for his daughter became his job.
For this reason, the director of “The job of looking for Inés” tries to show that dedication. In addition, she relates the militancy of both Olleros. “Cesar was Spanish and had participated in the fight against the Franco dictatorship,” she said. “In this way, it’s about how two dictatorships in two different countries intertwine in this family in a particular way.”
“It’s hard to talk about my dad and put into words the kind of person he was,” Inés’ sisters get excited in the film’s trailer. “He gave us a lot of freedom, but at the same time he told us his stories. My house was never apolitical, it was always counter-political”, they remember.
In this film, the life story behind the case helped to understand and unravel the horrors that took place in the ESMA, during the last Argentine military dictatorship.
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Cinema for memory: “The job of looking for Inés” – Footnote