“Argentina, 1985″: this is how the celebrated Argentine film that will come to Prime Video was made

Two hours and twenty minutes sum up four years of work by director Santiago Miter (1980) on the film “Argentina, 1985″, which narrates the titanic task that two prosecutors played by Ricardo Darín and Peter Lanzani had to demonstrate the crimes committed in the last Argentine dictatorship.

The film produced by Prime Video will premiere this Thursday, October 6 on the Peruvian billboard and will arrive on the streaming service on October 21. Before that, we talked in Buenos Aires with the director who avoided questions related to the Oscar Awards, an award for which the film has already been announced. “I don’t want to talk about it because he’s moping”, he excuses himself with a smile.

– There are many films that addressed hearings, allegations, it could be said that trial cinema is a subgenre. Did you take any specific reference for this work?

There was no direct reference, but there was an idea of ​​working as an affiliation with a certain cinematographic classicism. By this I mean purity of line, a simple narrative, with clear characters. This tradition served us to order how this trial is told to the Military Juntas. In the investigation, elements appeared that led us to reinforce that cinematographic tradition of trial films: Strassera was like a hero in spite of himself, as if it was difficult for him to accept carrying out this fact. We also have his alliance with the young lawyer (Moreno Ocampo), then the resistance of his entourage to participate in this trial out of mistrust or fear, which makes him summon young people.

– The film will arrive through Prime Video throughout the region, but before it will be released in theaters in various countries. Addressing a fact of Argentine history, why do you think this film can work in Latin America?

Because it talks about how to deal with the wound of a dictatorship. How do you get out of a tragedy? The countries have processed their experiences of dictatorship in different ways, each one as best they could, as their society decided to do. That invites reflection. The Argentine case makes me proud, it seems exemplary to me. Nor am I going to criticize the countries that decided to leave their dictatorships behind in another way. It seems to me that it invites us to reflect on how a democracy is built, how this post-dictatorship process is thought of.

Watch the full interview in the video that accompanies this note.

triumph of democracy

“Argentina, 1985″ is the first film produced by Prime Video in Argentina. Its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the Critics’ Award, and its subsequent appearance at the San Sebastián film event, in which it was chosen as the public’s favorite, position it as a strong card for the 2023 Oscars. Precisely, this week, she was selected to represent Argentina in these awards.

The film premiered on Thursday, September 29 in more than 200 theaters in the Argentine territory. On October 6 it will hit the Peruvian billboard and from the 21st of this month it will be available on the Prime Video streaming platform for all of Latin America.

Director Santiago Miter considers that the impact generated by the film is also a triumph of democracy. “It is important, for the current context, to review what this trial of the Military Juntas was, which was so founding of Argentine democracy and the implications it had. Highlight the context, the courage with which it was done. It was an Argentina with a very young democracy and deciding to prosecute its dictatorship was a risky decision, although correct. It seemed to me that it was something that we as Argentines should remember, ”she specifies.