Las Madres: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo

Director: Susana Blaustein Muñoz, Lourdes Portillo

Institute History

  • 1986 Sundance Film Festival

Description

Las Madres is a powerful story of the Argentine mothers who protested the 30,000 people who disappeared during the wave of kidnappings and killings that took place during the 1970’s. During this time the Argentine military government waged a “dirty war” against left-wing “subversives,” most of whom were youthful, active, idealistic and uncharged. Through the mid-1970’s, families who sought official information about their missing relatives were dismissed with denials. In April 1977, 14 mothers marched around the Presidential Palace in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, demanding to know what happened to their missing children.

Anguish and courage mark the faces of the women who gather every Thursday wearing pictures of their missing children around their necks. It is as though the idealism and activism of the missing children is being reborn in the older generation. The “Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo” have grown into an organization with over 2,500 members. Today they nave mounted an international campaign demanding the release of all disappeared person in Argentina and beyond.

Screening Details

Sundance Film Festival Awards

Credits

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