Κυριακή 9 Δεκεμβρίου 2007

memory...and the obligation to tell the story of the Missing.. Chile

Documentaries that I proposed in Diff's http://www.dubaifilmfest.com/ Destination Documentary selection this year start screening tommorow with the screening a Promise to the Dead on Ariel Doffman A must see!
Peter Raymont the director of the film is attending DIFF. see the trailer http://www.whitepinepictures.com/promise/trailer.htm
about the film On September 11, 1973, the Chilean military attacked its own government, staging a coup against socialist president Salvador Allende. Allende anticipated the violence, and the government’s key figures were called to the capitol buildings to stand against their attackers and face certain death. Ariel Dorfman should have been called; he later discovered his name was stricken from the list so he could survive to tell the story of what happened that day. Filmmaker Peter Raymont travels to Chile with Dorfman at the time when Dorfman’s long-time nemesis, Augusto Pinochet, is dying. Dorfman held the post of Cultural Adviser to Allende and is a greatly respected writer, human-rights activist and winner of the Sir Laurence Olivier Award for the play Death and the Maiden. Raymont follows Dorfman to personal landmarks that are powerful both emotionally and historically; during the journey, they explore exile, memory and the search for justice. Dorfman retraces the steps of a jubilant pro-Allende demonstration and stands before the balcony where, just prior to the coup, he saw Allende saying goodbye to the people. This loss, suffered more than thirty years ago, still clearly moves him. With Dorfman as chronicler, we discover the extent of domestic espionage that took place as he explores a massive tangle of tapped telephone wires left behind by Chilean Intelligence. “Every wire is a life,” he says. We meet the loved ones of those killed by Pinochet, without whom Dorfman says he could not have written. And, most startlingly, we are with him as the death of Pinochet is announced. As with Raymont’s unforgettable documentary, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire, this story of exile and battle scars is as personal as it is political. Chile was in upheaval as Pinochet lay dying, and Dorfman, a lifelong and indefatigable critic, faces Pinochet’s mourners and wrestles with what the General’s death means for a country living in his shadow. Raymont weaves previously unseen archival footage with highly charged contemporary sequences. The resulting film reveals how memory and the obligation to tell the story of the Missing have propelled both the intellect and the passion of this major writer and activist.

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