The Silence of Others
El Silencio de Otros
DIRECTOR(S): Almudena Carracedo, Robert Bahar COUNTRIES: Spain, United States YEAR: 2018 LANGUAGE(S): Spanish SUBTITLES: English RUNNING TIME: 96 min
SECTION: International Forum 2019
SCREENINGS
Friday, 04.10., 4.00 pm, kommkino
Sunday, 06.10., 8.00 pm, Caritas-Pirckheimer-Haus
SYNOPSIS
José Galante cannot and will not accept that his torturer is living only a few metres away from him, unpunished. Maria Martín is fighting to ensure that her mother’s bones are exhumed from a mass grave and buried next to her father’s remains. However, an amnesty law passed by a large majority in the Spanish parliament in 1977 not only guaranteed the release of all political prisoners, but also prohibited prosecution of any of the crimes committed by Franco’s dictatorship. For this reason, many atrocities remain unsolved to this day. Over a period of six years, the filmmakers spoke to victims, relatives and human rights lawyers about their long-standing struggle to obtain admissions of guilt and the abolition of the amnesty law. Their film also describes how a movement that began in someone’s kitchen eventually succeeded in gaining sufficient awareness for suppressed injustice that an international trial was held, during which arrest warrants were issued against no fewer than twenty former perpetrators of Franco’s regime. This intelligently edited film suffused by symbolic visuals paints a picture of a still-divided society, torn between forgetting and coming to terms with its past.
ALMUDENA CARRACEDO
Almudena Carracedo was born in Madrid in 1972. Her career started in the US where she produced and directed her debut film Made in L.A.. This documentary was awarded with an Emmy and received high praises from critics. Carracedo returned to Spain in 2012 for the making of The Silence of Others.
FILMOGRAPHY
Welcome, a Docu-Journey of Impressions (2003), Made in L.A. (2007), The Silence of Others (2018)
ROBERT BAHAR
Robert Bahar was born in 1975 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and studied Cinema at the University of Southern California. He received scholarships from Creative Capital, a non-governmental organization and the Sundance Documentary Fellowship. The filmmaker, producer and author lives and works in Madrid as well as New York. He won an Emmy award for his production Made in L.A..
FILMOGRAPHY
Laid to Waste (1996), Made in L.A. (2007), The Silence of Others (2018)
PRODUCERS: Robert Bahar, Almudena Carracedo CAMERA: Almudena Carracedo EDITORS: Kim Roberts, Ricardo Acosta MUSIC: Leonardo Heiblum, Jacobo Lieberman
PRODUCTION: Semilla Verde Productions Ltd., Lucernam Films S.L. WORLD SALES: Shoshi Korman, Cinephil