PRY 2017, R: Paz Encinas mit Rogelio Goiburu, Elín Goiburu, Jazmín Goiburu, 70 Min, OmeU

Through the testimony of his three children, Paraguayan director Paz Encina reconstructs the figure of Agustín Goiburú and—almost as a necessary consequence— also the one of dictator Alfredo Stroessner. Murdered in 1977 in the context of the so-called Operation Condor, Goiburú stood out as the most tenacious challengers of the dictatorship, which held the awful record of staying in power for 35 years (1954-1989). The words of the sons relive their young memories of a life in exile and constant threat, as the silent camera tries to squeeze out yet another testimony from the emptiness, the silent landscapes, and the quiet corners.

Like in her first filmParaguayan Hammock—where an old couple waited for their son to return from the Chaco war—Encina dives into the corners of absence within a torn family. The daughter of an opposition leader herself, the filmmaker knows about living your childhood and adolescence in a dictatorship, and through the stories of the Goiburú and the historic debts, she moves through a past that bleeds as it looks for answers.