Argentina’s painful history under military rule has returned to the spotlight at the Venice Film Festival through a powerful new film.
Italian-Chilean filmmaker Marco Bechis explores the lasting impact of the country’s Dirty War in Return to Buenos Aires.
Bechis personally experienced the dictatorship’s repression after authorities detained him at a secret detention camp in 1977.
His latest film arrives 27 years after Olympic Garage, which also examined Argentina’s clandestine detention centres.
Film explores a survivor’s return to Argentina
Return to Buenos Aires follows Mariano Guerra, an Italian doctor who is asked to return to Argentina.
Guerra must testify against military officers accused of kidnapping and torturing him during the dictatorship.
Italian actor Adriano Giannini plays Guerra, who faces memories he would rather leave behind.
However, his return also forces him to confront actions carried out under pressure from his captors.
The film explores his struggle with guilt and the difficult choices he made while trying to survive.
“That was the trigger: I wanted to make a film about that surreal encounter between a survivor and his captors in a courtroom,” Bechis told AFP.
Bechis draws on his own experience
Bechis lived in Argentina during his youth and was detained at a clandestine detention centre in 1977.
He later testified about his experience in 2020, adding a personal connection to the subject explored in his latest film.
The director said the story does not directly recreate his own experience. Instead, he built it through extensive research and conversations with survivors.
One of those conversations involved a friend who survived four secret torture centres.
“As in Olympic Garage, it’s not a true story, but every piece of the story is real. Everything you see in this film has a documentary basis but is combined creatively, in my own way.”
Argentina’s Dirty War remains a painful legacy
Argentina’s military dictatorship lasted from 1976 to 1983 and became one of Latin America’s most brutal regimes.
Rights groups estimate that around 30,000 people were killed during the period.
Authorities kidnapped, tortured and killed suspected political opponents. Some victims were reportedly thrown from helicopters and aircraft into the sea.
Against this background, Bechis focuses on the complicated position of survivors who were forced to cooperate with their captors.
A “tragic figure” at the centre
Bechis described the survivor as a “tragic figure” who is often overlooked as a victim.
“The collaborator who worked inside the camps to stay alive, who had to give his time and, in some way, denounce his comrades to survive,” he explained.
Through Guerra’s character, the film examines the psychological burden carried by people who survived such conditions.
The story therefore looks beyond the violence itself and considers how survivors continue to confront its consequences.
Venice continues its focus on Latin American history
Return to Buenos Aires is competing for the top prize at the Venice Film Festival.
The film joins a series of Latin American productions that have revisited the region’s military dictatorships and their lasting effects.
Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here follows a woman searching for her husband, who disappeared during Brazil’s military dictatorship.
The film won the Oscar for best foreign film last year after premiering at Venice.
Meanwhile, Santiago Mitre’s Argentina 1985 focused on the landmark trial of members of Argentina’s dictatorship.
That film also premiered at Venice and later won a Golden Globe in 2023.
Another film in this year’s competition is Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse 9.
It follows two CIA agents travelling to Chile’s Easter Island before General Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 military coup.
A story shaped by memory and survival
With Return to Buenos Aires, Bechis returns to a period that has remained deeply connected to his own life.
Yet the director has chosen to tell a fictional story built from real experiences and extensive research.
The film places one survivor at the centre of a difficult confrontation with the past.
As Guerra faces his former captors in court, the story examines survival, guilt and the complicated memories left by Argentina’s Dirty War.
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