Keeping history alive in legal thriller ‘Argentina, 1985’
The 1985 Trial of the Juntas was a seismic moment in Argentina’s history, helping to solidify the country’s democratic future after seven years of military dictatorship. But when filmmaker Santiago Mitre started talking about making a classic political thriller about the David vs. Goliath trial, in which public prosecutors Julio Strassera and Luis Moreno Ocampo tried former military leaders for war crimes, including the torture and disappearance of thousands between 1976 and 1983, he was surprised to learn that few of his peers knew much about it.
Mitre was only four years old at the time of the trial in 1985, but through his mother - who worked in justice her whole life - he’d grown up hearing stories about the trial, its importance for Argentina and anecdotes about Strassera’s unique personality (grumpy, but full of humor).
Strassera was the veteran prosecutor who reluctantly took on the case, fearful for his family and himself. Ocampo was younger and more idealistic, but also risked alienating his own prominent family, who had significant military ties. Mitre was certain that the personalities and drama of the situation would make for a great film in the vein of classic political thrillers like “All the President’s Men” and “Judgement at Nüremberg.”
“Argentina, 1985,” which is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video, chronicles the momentous trial, which took place under a cloud
LOS ANGELES: An attorney for Harvey Weinstein on Friday repeatedly challenged a woman over why she didn’t raise more objections or leave the hotel room in Puerto Rico where she said he sexually assaulted her during a 2003 film shoot.
Attorney Mark Werksman asked the woman, known during Weinstein’s Los Angeles rape and sexual assault trial only as Ashley M, whether she ever had a second thought where she said to herself, “I’m just going to walk right back out that door?”
“I was worried,” she said. “I knew he was big and I didn’t know what to do,” she said.”
The woman was a 22-year-old dancer on the Puerto Rico set of the film “Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights,” which was produced by Weinstein’s company, Miramax.
In her first day of testimony Thursday, Ashley M. said that she went with Weinstein to the hotel because she had been assured she was headed to a meeting to discuss future opportunities, but she said once they were alone, Weinstein pushed her on to a bed.
She repeated that she had been reassured by the woman who was Weinstein’s assistant at the time that she would remain with them, and that he only wanted to discuss future projects.
“I just basically did what I thought the people that were running the meeting wanted me to do. I really had no interest in being an actress. I had spent my life dancing,” she said. “I was engaged to be married. I wanted to finally start my life, maybe finally wanted to start a family at that time.”
She and Weinstein entered the room but the assistant didn’t follow them, and instead closed the door behind them, she said.
Ashley M. had said she wasn’t sure they were headed to a private room, that they might be going to an office or some other space at the hotel.
Werksman asked whether she thought to herself, “’I’m now entering a hotel, this isn’t about work.’ Did that dawn on you at any moment?”
She said she was being deferential because Weinstein was “in charge,” a feeling she got strongly from others on the set.
Werksman asked her repeatedly why she didn’t protest more.
“Did you verbalize or express the panic you were feeling out loud?” Werksman asked.
She answered yes.
She said earlier in her testimony that she knows she told him to stop, but that she kept most of her objections silent out of fear.
“I was too scared,” she said. “I just was trying to leave,” she said. “I was just hoping that nothing worse was going to happen.” of extraordinary uncertainty and unease only two years after the dictatorship fell.
With a death toll that human rights organizations estimate at 30,000, Argentina’s dictatorship is considered Latin America’s deadliest of the 1970s and ‘80s. Less than half of the dead have been recognized at the official level, however, because the military made the bodies of most of its victims disappear.
Across five months in the courtroom, during which the prosecutorial team received constant personal threats, 833 witnesses testified. Several of those testimonies are used verbatim in the film to great dramatic effect.
Perspective
“It was super important to have direct contact with the people that worked on the trial,” Mitre said. “I spoke to as many as it was possible for me, because I felt that the film needed like to have this stronger human perspective. I spoke to the judges, to the people who gave testimony in the trial and of course to the people that were part of the prosecutorial team. It was very important for me for not only for knowing the facts, but to understand what they were feeling.”
He met Ocampo, portrayed by Peter Lanzani in the film, many times, and Strassera’s son, who though young at the time, was enraptured by his father’s work. The supportive, engaged Strassera family is a main
Werksman asked how she had been dressed. She said she couldn’t remember, but doesn’t think she was in the orange dress that was her wardrobe for the shoot.
Ashley M. is not one of the five women Weinstein is charged with sexually assaulting. She is one of four others who have been allowed to testify at the trial about his focus of the narrative.
“They were all involved with Julio’s trial,” Mitre said. “It was something that was very sweet.”
Upon hearing about the project, Ricardo Darín - who had worked with Mitre before - wanted not only to play Strassera, who died in 2015, but to produce as well. Being slightly older than Mitre, he remembered the trial well, and wanted to help younger generations who were born into democracy in the country understand what happened.
“It was a very, very big deal,” Darín said through a translator. “Let’s not forget that a lot of people in a lot of parts of the society in Argentina back then, they had no idea of the horrors that had happened. This is something that was not talked about and something that was not shared. So for a lot of people, being able to see witnesses come forward and being able to hear the family members of people who were killed or tortured was an eye opener.”
The film has been well received around the world at various festivals, recently picking up the audience award in San Sebastian, and in Argentina, which submitted it to compete for best international film at the Oscars. The Oscars will narrow the international submissions to a 15-film shortlist in December, which will inform the final nominations in January.
For Mitre, though, it’s more than awards on his mind. He’s trying to help preserve and build a society’s memory. (AP) propensity for such crimes.
Weinstein has pleaded not guilty, and denied engaging in any non-consensual.
The 70-year-old former movie mogul is already serving a 23-year sentence for a New York conviction that is under appeal.
The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they have come forward publicly.
Ashley M. told her story to the New York Times in October of 2017, when the newspaper’s accounts of women who say Weinstein sexually assaulted them put the movie executive at the center of the #MeToo movement. (AP)