“Democracy is not given, it is built”

The special feature of the film Argentina, 1985from the director Santiago Miterrecently shortlisted to represent our country at the Oscars, was held on Thursday, September 29 at the Gaumont Complex and was organized by Ministry of Culture of the Nation and the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (INCAA)thanks to the kindness of the producers of the feature film.

Argentina, 1985 narrates the Trial of the Juntas of the last civic-military dictatorship, carried out during the presidency of Raúl Alfonsín.

The story is centered on the figures of prosecutors Julio César Strassera (played by Ricardo Darin) and Luis Moreno Ocampo (played by Peter Lanzani), and in the adversities of the historical and political context that involved prosecuting those most responsible for crimes against humanity.

The function was attended by the head of the Presidential Management Communication Unit, Gabriela Cerruti; the acting vice-president of the presidency of INCAA, Nicolás Batlle; the director of Tecnópolis, María Rosenfeld; and the human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel.

Also in attendance were Agustina Llambi Campbell, one of the film’s producers; the screenwriter Mariano Llinás; Edgardo Esteban, author and screenwriter of Iluminados por el fuego and director of the Malvinas Museum; the actor Víctor Laplace, the actress and producer Victoria Carreras, and the researcher and sociologist Dora Barrancos.

Students from secondary schools and from various film schools and institutions also attended.

The film, which premiered today in theaters, toured several international festivals with great repercussion. Received the Audience Award at the 70th edition of the San Sebastián International Film Festival, and was shortlisted by the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Argentina to participate in the next edition of the Oscars. It was also chosen to represent Argentina at the 37th edition of the Goya Awards, in the Best Ibero-American Film category.

“I want to thank the producers who gave us the opportunity to screen Argentina, 1985. It is a very important production from the thematic and from the historical point of view. Hopefully, from INCAA, we can collaborate so that it can be seen in secondary schools,” he said. Nicholas Batlleacting vice president of the INCAA presidency, who sent an affectionate greeting from the Nation’s Minister of Culture, Tristán Bauer, who is on a trip.

“I am going to take on the challenge of remembering, because memory is not part of the past but rather illuminates our present and that is where we can create a better country. I am a survivor of those days and as such, it is my obligation to accompany the new generations, so that the cry that was heard in the trial, the Never more!be never again to crimes against humanity”, he said Adolfo Perez Esquivel.

“Democracy is not given, it is built. Another world is possible, in diversity, because the wealth of peoples is diversity. But there are factions that are generating hatred and we have to have unity to tell them ‘enough’. We are not going to allow it,” said the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

“I hope that this film represents us as Argentines and Argentines,” said the producer Agustina Llambi Campbell.

For his part, the writer Mariano Llinas spoke out in defense of specific allocations for culture: “We are going through a particular moment for those of us who are part of Argentine culture, which has to do with the extension of specific allocations for cultural industries and institutions. There is little time left to defend our Argentine culture as we know it,” said Llinás.

The movie Argentina, 1985 it is a production in which Agustina Llambi Campbell and Santiago Carabante participated for La Unión de los Ríos; Federico Posternak for Kenya Films; Axel Kuschevatzky for Infinity Hill; and Javiera Balmaceda for Amazon Studios.