BBOTINOTIN DEDE G GUERRAUERRA

((SSPOILS OF POILS OF WWARAR))

A documentary film by A documentary film by David BlausteinDavid Blaustein

SYNOPSIS SYNOPSIS

From the first times of the military dictatorship in Argentina, a group of women, missing boys' mothers, were meeting each other and uniting their efforts to undertake the search of their grandsons, kidnapped next to their parents or born in captivity when their pregnant mothers were arrested during the military repression. Since those days, the fight has been long and difficult, but the laborious search has given its fruits thanks to the force, the bravery and the perseverance of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo.

Through their testimonies, we can make a journey for the recent history of Argentina and discover how “the Plan Condor”, programmed and executed by the Latin American military dictatorships to put an end to the left movements by means of the repression and the torture, it institutionalised the robbery of children like part of their terror strategy and manipulation, to avoid the “contamination of relationship”, surrendering messianically to those kidnapped for their education to “model” families that shared the images of “model” that possess the repressors. This supposed the recovery of one of the most bestial rights that, according to some, the war gives: the right to the spoil.

In “SPOILS OF WAR” a new element appears, the voices of the boys and girls returned to its biological families, voices never listened up to now and that they contribute an unique and shaking testimony on the destination that he/she played them to live and that, as that of its Grandmothers, it is united inseparably to that of an entire generation of young whose absence continues weighing in the Argentinean society.

DAVID BLAUSTEINDAVID BLAUSTEINDirectorDirector

Born in Buenos Aires in 1953. He carried out his studies in the National School of Buenos Aires; in Mexico in the FILM University Centre (1978-83), and in Spain in the Official Institute of Spanish RadioTelevisión (1993).

He worked as producer of several documentary filmmakers: Fernando Birri, Humberto Ríos, Jorge Denti, etc.

He was responsible for the area of Promotion of the Ibero-American distribution company “ZAFRA A.C.”

He organised different screenings of independent Cinema and Video, especially of Latin American and Caribbean directors. He was in charge of the Audio-visual Area of “Marcos Lohlé&Asoc.” (1990-1992).

He participated as conductor of several radio programs in Provincia, Excélsior and FM Palermo. At the moment he drives the program “Back-room” with Raúl Zafforoni in the Radio of the City.

It was National Manager of the Audiovisual Diffusion Department of the National Secretary of the Culture (1989-90). Member of APIMA, he has participated in diverse institutional activities of the film industry.

He is president of “Harvest Diffusion, CORP.” Member of EDN (European Documentary Network), AIVF (Association of Independent Video and Film Makers) and IFP (Independent Feature Project).

Director and Executive Producer of the film “Hunters of utopies”, rewarded of the Documentary Competition of the INCAA (1994).

Argentinean Executive Producer of “Papá Iván”, documentary film in coproduction with Mexico. Project in development.

Executive Producer of “Damned it is the war”; feature film in coproduction with Spain. Project in development.

Director and co-writer of “Spoils of war”, documentary film.

CREW LISTCREW LIST

RESEARCH

SCRIPT

DIRECTOR

PRODUCTION COMPANIES

EXECUTIVE PRODUCTION

DIR. PHOTOGRAPHY

SOUND MAN

EDITION

MUSIC

Paula Romero (Argentina)Dolores Miconi (Argentina)Manane Rodríguez (Spain)

David Blaustein Irene Ickowicz

David Blaustein

Zafra Cine Difusión (Argentina)Tornasol Films (Spain)

Mariela Besuievsky

Marcelo Iaccarino

Carlos Faruolo

Juan Carlos Macias

Jorge Drexler

TECHNICAL DATATECHNICAL DATA

GENERE

YEAR OF PRODUCTION

NATIONALITY

LENGHT

SHOOTING FORMAT

PROYECTION FORMAT

LOCATION

SHOOTING SCHEDULE

SOUND

Documentary

1999

ARGENTINA-SPAIN

107 min.

16 mm and Betacam Digital

35mm 1/1:85 Color

Argentina, Spain and Switerland

March-April 1999

Dolby SR

A ZAFRA DIFUSIÓN (Argentina) and TORNASOL FILMS (Spain) documentary film, in coproduction with TELEVISIÓN ESPAÑOLA and ARTE

(France) and the collaboration of JAN VRIJMAN FOUND (Holland) and IBERMEDIA.

Distributed by ALTA FILMS

PUBLIC LETTER BY THE POET JUAN PUBLIC LETTER BY THE POET JUAN GELMANGELMAN

Public letter written by the poet and writer Juan Gelman, addressed to his missing granddaughter or grandson, born in captivity in one of the 365 concentration camps operating during the military dictatorship.

"In six months you'll be 19. You must have been born some day in October 1976 in an Army concentration camp, the 'Pit of Quilmes' most likely. A little while before or after you were born, your father was murdered with a bullet shot at the back of his head from a distance of less than half a meter. He was helpless and was killed by a military squad, maybe the same men that kidnapped him and your mother on August 24 in Buenos Aires and took him to the concentration camp 'Automotores Orletti' that operated right in the middle of the Floresta neighborhood, the one the military called 'The Garden'. Your father's name was Marcelo. Your mother's, Claudia. Both were 20 years old and you were seven months in her womb when that happened. She was then taken -- and you with her -- to the pit when the delivery day was near. In there, she must have borne you all alone, under the eyes of some physician in collusion with the military dictatorship. Then you were wrenched from her side and ended up -- that was usually the case -- in the hands of a barren wife of a military or a police member, or a judge, or a journalist friend of a military, or a policeman. In those days there was a gruesome waiting list for every concentration camp: the applicants expected to take hold of a child stolen from the prisoners that were pregnant, and

who, with few exceptions, were murdered immediately after. Thirteen years have passed since the military left the government, and nothing has been known of your mother. Your father, however, was found 13 years later inside a 200 liters grease barrel that the military filled with sand and concrete and threw into the San Fernando river. He is buried in La Tablada. At least we know about him.

'I find it odd to tell you about my children as the parents you never had. I don't know whether you are a girl or a boy. I know you were born. I was told by Father Fiorello Cavalli, of the Vatican State’s Secretary in February 1978. I've been wondering ever since what your fate was. Contradictory ideas jump to my mind. On one hand, I always loathed the idea of you calling 'Daddy' a military, or the policeman who stole you, or friends of your parent's murderers. On the other hand, I always hoped that whatever family you ended up with, you were raised with care and love. I couldn't help thinking, however, that even though, there must have been some flaw or shortcoming in the way they loved you, not because they're not your blood-parents, but rather because they must be aware of your history, and how they seized it and counterfeited it. I guess they've done a lot of lying.

"I've also thought, throughout these years, what I would do if I found you: whether I would take you away from your foster home, or talk to your foster parents and reach an agreement that would allow me to see you and be with you, always on the principle that you should know who you were and where you came from.

"I had to face that predicament every time -- and it was several times -- that there was a possibility that Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo might have found you. It happened again and again in different terms, according to your age at the moment. I worried that you'd be too young to understand what had happened to you. To understand why your parents were not those you believed them to be, and who you might love as such. I was worried that you might then be double hurt, a sort of rent in the fabric of your emerging subjectivity. But you are a grown up now. Now you can know who you are, and then decide what to do with what you were. There are the Grandmothers, with their blood identity bank that allows the precise scientific identification of the origin of the children of missing detainees. Your origin.

"Nowadays you're almost as old as your parents when they were killed, and soon you'll be older. They remained 20 years old forever. They dreamt a lot about you and with a better world for you. To recognize my son in you, and for you to recognize your father in me: we're both orphans of him. To somehow redress that brutal gash or the silence perpetrated in the flesh of the family by the military dictatorship. To restore your history, not to take you away from that which you don't want to lose. You're grown up, as I've said.

"The dreams of Marcelo and Claudia had have not come true yet. Except for you, who were born, and are who knows where and who knows with whom. Maybe your eyes are greenish gray like my son's, or light brown like your mother's, that had a mischievous and tender sparkle, very special. Who

knows what you look like if you are a boy. Who knows what you look like if you are a girl. Perhaps you'll be able to break through this mystery and to come into another: the meeting with a grandfather waiting for you."

ABOUT THE PROJECT ABOUT THE PROJECT

“SPOILS OF WAR” was shot along six weeks in Argentina, Switzerland and Spain, with the collaboration of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and of many other people linked to the fight for the restitution of the missing children during the Argentinean dictatorship.

During the shooting, they interviewed to more than forty people and it was carried out a meticulous investigation and archive research.

“We were coming closer in foot tips, for not bothering with our presence. The pre-script of “SPOILS OF WAR” was being built like a score. Voice to voice, The Grandmothers related us their own epic poem and their grandsons and granddaughters completed, with other harmonies, the story of an untiring search. Today this choir looks at us from the screen claiming our orchestral work.”

Luisa Irene Ickowicz Co-writer

“Outlined originally as a film about the memory, “SPOILS OF WAR” has left developing as well as the shooting took place. In that way, the original script was taking the sense of a “text in development” that transformed itself with the words of each interview.”

Marcelo Schapces Assistant Director

GRANDMOTHERS OF PLAZA DE MAYO GRANDMOTHERS OF PLAZA DE MAYO

The Plaza de Mayo, with their central pyramid –if some time it was- projects us to more than 20 years ago: October, November 1977.

The circle of women that the Argentinean Goverment, represented for military with orders of “reorganizing the Nation”, have snatched them the most valuable thing, their children, tell to the world that many of them are also looking for the children of their children.

Between questions and absence the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo are created to find the fruits that were stolen from swollen wombs. They go for the search in a city that they don´t know: orphanages, barracks, police stations, uniforms, colonels, soldiers.

They dawn with the screams of the losses and they go to bed with the illusion of some rake that allows them to find those babies for those that many already have dresses, blankets or just an space in their beds where to shelter and rock them. Or perhaps, to count them some history of pirates, of those that always happen so far.

The years pass and their grandsons will already be emitting their first voices and although they don't surely know the meaning of the word “to lie” they are experiencing it.

The Grandmothers will continue. The cradle songs transform and they are no longer looking for in the kindergardens. Now, day after day, they accompany them with the white overcoats, the exits of the schools and the desires of hugging their grandsons; of counting them of the times when everything was different. When the parents of their grandsons dreamt of a better world. When the parents of their grandsons dreamt of their children.

And the Plaza de Mayo is always there, witness of the desires mixed with pain. Witness of dreams and nightmares.

The first meetings help to the faith, the hope. And the happiness of a grandmother is the one of all. And already all have a grandson. They will have more.

The search of years begins to make sense. Their grandsons are, still when many of them not even know it. They have left indelible prints they check it: the blood, perhaps the looks or the hands. Even the essence.

Today the grandsons of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, the grandsons of that irreparable pain of losing a son and, also to their son's son, they have more or less between 18 and 25 years. And the proof of the desire of finding them it is that these women so different and so similar in their strenght continue dreaming with “one Sunday all together” and one enjoys them with all their “Grandmothership”.

Each one of these women tell a story, her story.

Each one of their grandsons also tell a story. Some with the memory of a brother they didn't still enjoy. Some that were able to discovered themselves from finding to their biological family. Others that newly begin a search itinerary. All with their truth on the back.

It is a lot to listen.

It is still that those that at some time were with their biological mother, in their womb, in their hands, in their chests, look at their grandmothers´eyes to recognize.

They are still many boys with the wait in the arms and many women with the beating heart and the desires of being grandmothers.

Paula Romero Levit Investigator

CHRONOLOGY CHRONOLOGY

1974

July Juan Domingo Perón, elected president in 1973, dies. Their wife, María Estela, known as Isabel Martínez, until that moment vice-president, substitutes him.

August First collective slaughter of the fascist organization “Triple A”. Four historical militants of the Peronism in La Plata are murdered.

1975

Julio Because of the pressure of the syndicalism and the armed forces, López Rega, founder of the Triple A, gives up. In all the country, labor columns are created willing to arrive at the Capital. Strong repressive device.

August The general Jorge Rafael Videla assumes the command of the Army of Earth. That same day the comunist organization, known as Montoneros, demolishes an airplane with soldiers assigned to combat the guerrilla bands in Tucumán.

October Videla, in the XI Conference of American Armies in Uruguay), says: “If it is essential, in Argentina all the necessary people will die to achieve the security of the country.” In spite of the falls, the actions of Montoneros continue.

1976

March The president Isabel Martínez de Perón is deprived and arrested and military Goverment takes the power. The general Videla, Major of the Army of Earth, assumes the presidency. Economic measures of marked liberal accent are announced.

1977

April The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo are created and, in October, the Grandmothers the Plaza de Mayo.

1979

Septem. It arrives to the country the Interamerican Commission of human rights of the OAS (American Organization of States). When leaving they announce that they received 5.580 summaries of violations.

1981

March General Roberto Viola assumes the presidency. He was deprived few months later and replaced by the general Leopoldo Galtieri.

October It is carried out the Parade for the life, summoned by the Multiparty and Human Rights. First multiparty manifestation.

1982

March Important mobilization in the Plaza de Mayo against the government politics. There are many arrested people.

April The Argentinean Army invades the Malvinas. The British troops reconquer the islands and after the capitulation of the Argentinean troops, the general Galtieri gives the presidency of the republic to the general Bignone.

1983

October Presidential elections. Raúl Alfónsín becomes the president.

Decemb. The president Alfonsín creates the National Commission about the Disappearance of People (CONADEP), which takes charge of writing a report on the crimes made by the Army during the military government.

1985

April In the National Camera the trial to the military goverment begins. It takes a long time to begin because the Mother of Plaza de Mayo, Hebe of Bonafini, enters to the place with her white handkerchief and refuses to take it off.

May Estela de Carlotto declares in the trial.

1986

Decemb. Videla and Massera are condemned to perpetual prison. Heavy sentences for other members of the military goverment.

1987

June The Camera of Deputies sanctions the Law of Due Obedience. The first day of validity of the law, 182 military are acquitted.

Novemb. The President Alfonsín meets the Grandmothers and he promises them the appointment of an unique Defensor for the missing children.

1988

Decemb. The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo present a document with more than 13.773 signatures to the Supreme Court so that they create a procedure to restore immediately to their true families the children kidnapped during the dictatorship.

1989

October The president Menem signs a reprieve ordinance to all the military accused and processed by crimes made during the dictatorship.

1990

Decemb. It goes against the reprieve. Around 100.000 people.

1996

Septemb. The Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón solves to call to declare to 101 military, policemen and Argentinean civilians as “accomplice-imputed” in the cause for the disappearance of 266 Spaniards during the dictatorship.

Decemb. A failure of the Court solves that the supposed children of missing being with presumed not-biological families should undergo sanguine exams obligatorily to determine its filiation.

The Grandmothers begin a criminal quarrel for subtraction of children against some of the most relevant characters of the dictatorship.

1997

Julio The ex-captain Adolfo Scilingo accuses the government of impeding the search of the missing children. He reveals in the face of the justice the modus operandi of the Army to appropriate the babies born in captivity.

October The judge Galtasar Garzón orders the corvette former-captain's detention, Adolfo Scilingo, after he admitted that it had participated in the called “flights of the death.”

1998

June The judge Marquevich orders Videla´s detention.

Novemb. Massera is arrested in Campo de Mayo.