2024-04-24 03:01:00
A huge woman like Taty Almeida, a symbol of struggle and resistance, does not need many introductions. But director and teacher Claudio “Pipo” Sautu decided to go further: make a documentary that shows life and struggle of Taty, who represents that of all her colleagues who have been demanding Memory, Truth and Justice for decades. It all arose in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, when Sautu from CNN was called because they were preparing a program about the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo and the 78 World Cup. Sautu was going to interview Taty. Finally, that proposal fell through, it did not air, but he realized that it could generate very rich and interesting material. He called her and said, “I just read 50 percent of your life and it’s exciting. I want to film a documentary.” Taty replied: “Yes, Pipo, let’s see it and chat.” The result is Story of a Mother of Plaza de Mayo Founding Linewhat It can be seen this Wednesday the 24th at 7 p.m. in the UMET Auditorium (Sarmiento 2037), with free admission. The presentation will be led by the journalist and documentary filmmaker Nora Anchart and they will participate alongside the director, Taty Almeida herself and the general director of Page 12, Hugo Soriani. The musical closing will be performed by Ignacio Copani.
“I became attached in a touching way,” says Sautu because of the bond of friendship that was generated with Taty. “I began to prepare a new script of her entire life. Meanwhile, for seven months I began to follow her in different activities to have archival material. A new script was built based on reports that she gave in different libraries, institutions and universities” . After seven months, they recorded the interview, which lasted 80 minutes (of which 35 minutes remained in the film). Sautu also interviewed two of Taty’s children, Jorge and Fabiana. “Later I did several interviews with testimonies from colleagues about the whole issue of the missing and their search.” Taty is also mother of Alejandro, who was kidnapped on June 17, 1975 by Triple A. “It took a long time to put together the documentary, especially the archival material from when she was young. That is a bit of the story of how I relate to her, and above all the admiration for the work that she does and builds in the delivery of files, for example, and in marches. I combined it for six months,” says Sautu.
-How did you work on the private and public aspects of a character with so much symbolic and historical weight?
-I worked on it in a very natural way. The confidence that she inspires in you lets you do everything. To all the questions I asked her, she answered twice as much as I wanted to know. It was an almost family relationship. On the private side, in the talks we had in places near her house, I could see that she is the same person both in his public life and in her private life. She preserves herself a lot, she takes great care of her health, but I don’t notice any kind of difference. As you see her in public life, she is in intimate life. I was surprised and she is on alert with the political events in this country. I don’t notice much difference, she is very trustworthy.
-What do you think the word “resistance” meant to her before the kidnapping of her son Alejandro and what did it mean afterwards?
-She says that she really lived in a bubble: she describes that at that time she was a gorilla, she took care of her children and, in addition, she was surrounded by a military family, except for her husband. She didn’t have any kind of political ideology, except being a gorilla. And in the film it is said that she thought that the military was going to help her find her son and that was not the case. Not only was it not like that, but all kinds of information were hidden from Taty. That’s where the resistance was born, especially when she arrived in Madres because she started the search alone. And it took her many years to reach Madres because she feared that they would reject her, that they would think that she was a spy.
-Did the filming have painful moments?
-The truth is that at one point I thought about not continuing it when I began to ask the questions that seemed desperate to me, like the moment when I asked him what happened on the morning of June 18, 1975, which was the morning after when Alejandro He didn’t go home. He disappeared on June 17, 1975 and I asked him what happened the next morning. And it was a desperate state and she began to say that she mixed things up. She had found an agenda and says that he already knew they were going to kill him. That’s where Taty broke down. It was a difficult moment to tell the beginning of the search. And another more difficult one was when I interviewed Jorge, Alejandro’s brother. He broke down in the interview and I had to stop twice. He began to cry because he not only suffers the loss of his brother but also the exile. He had to leave out of fear and left his entire family here, so he couldn’t collaborate much in the search. I always talk to Jorge. He is still very affected.
-With the documentary, did you set out to explain how a woman with so much courage transformed pain into hope?
-Totally, yes. It’s admirable, it’s a beacon. Both her and all her Mothers, because I not only did it for her but for all the Mothers who have been so mistreated. The strength they have is admirable.
-Do you feel this work as a thank you to them who gave us so much?
-Yes of course. When I called her, after some very nice messages she told me, I broke down because there I discovered that thanks to the Mothers, all of us who lived through that time of terror are alive, because we felt that the Mothers were defeating the dictatorship. They began to appease the military advance from 1980 onwards. And neither the death of Azucena Villaflor nor the kidnapping nor the beatings defeated them. I have been going to their marches since 1982. And we were able to do it thanks to them. The soldiers didn’t touch us in the street. And I lived the whole story.
-What does it mean to you to release a film about a woman who fought all her life at this time when the national government is vindicating the criminal actions of the dictatorship?
-It is both a historical and cultural battle. I care so much about spreading the documentary because it is the best way for people, especially youth, to see that this denialism cannot be. There is no way you can erase all the horror that happened. I lived it day after day from Triple A. I was 15 years old and I saw the actions, which took away friends and teachers, from Haroldo Conti the night they took him away in ’75. This cannot be denied and must be spread. Many young people saw the documentary at the private functions I did and were amazed because this truth has to be permanent over time. That means a lot of emotion. I knew the topic was going to impact. I think it’s the right time to spread it.
-Why do you think that a good part of society, which seemed to have settled accounts with history after the trials of the genocidaires, now supports far-right figures who want to tarnish the flag of human rights?
-It’s quite inexplicable. I couldn’t say what happened, but I’ve been seeing this denialism for twenty years. I saw it in universities. I am a teacher and I saw that young people had a hard time understanding. Compared to those who say “This is over, it’s old time, a clean slate”, for me it is not like that. In other countries, the memory of the Holocaust continues to be defended to this day. I don’t have an explanation. The truth is that, in that sense, I am quite demoralized. Not all of them, huh? There are older people too, not just some of the youth. And it also happens to me in my family. That’s one of the reasons I made the film: I got tired of arguing, of explaining what the ’70s and ’80s were like. And to this day they discuss it with me. There are people who are totally convinced that this crazy shit is doing things right. I do not understand what happened. There is a great division (which always existed) and a lot of hatred was created. It is also a way of hating the governments that really made us happy and gave us something, like those of Néstor and Cristina. It can not be understood. There is a lot of hate.
-What did Taty feel when she saw the finished documentary?
-He got very excited. He gave me a 15 minute hug. I was very happy. It was impressive. He took my hand and for half an hour he didn’t let me have it. She is very happy. I didn’t do it with the support of Incaa because they didn’t give me the time. So I gave him a surprise. I didn’t say anything to him the last few months. The emotion was tremendous. She is very happy. She looks like a 15 year old girllaughter): Yesterday he called me five times. What five times? No, ten! He calls me every day to see how things are going.
-Do you think that for her the documentary has a double value? Not only because it tells her life, but also because it shows the strength of those who never gave up…
-Completely. And she is going to use it as a flag: she wants to distribute it and display it in all the cities. She wants to send him to Europe. I already sent it to Barcelona, Sicily. It premiered in Malaga and Turin. She is very eager for this to be distributed. They are asking for it from many cultural centers, basic units too, so I am throwing out copies like crazy. It is a parallel circuit to what Incaa was. It is a document of great interest for all ages. From the age of 15 you can see it perfectly. And in Barcelona a very special movement is being organized with the film, with mothers of those who disappeared during Franco’s regime. It is being organized by Alejandro’s best friend, who I was able to contact.
-Do you hope that the film will be seen by new generations?
-Yes, I trust because I have already contacted Taty’s grandchildren and her classmates want to see her, with my niece who is studying Literature Teaching in Campana. And I was already testing it with a group of young people of 28, 30 years old, who were very surprised, beyond what they had heard, because here we have a lot of people to throw dirt on. I trust a lot. Let’s make sure this is a document and circulate it.