Search Film, Company, People...

EL SHERIFF

By Duilio GATTI

Animation - Development 2024

"A journalist investigates and connects events in the life of Malevo Ferreyra, a controversial police commissioner who built a myth around himself, gaining power and popular support."

- Year of production
- 2024
- Genres
- Animation, Documentary, Book adaptation
- Countries
- ARGENTINA
- Languages
- SPANISH-ARGENTINE
- Budget
- N/A
- Duration
- 120 mn
- Director(s)
- Duilio GATTI
- Writer(s)
- Duilio GATTI, Nadia NEDER
- Cast
- Sibila CAMPS, Mario Malevo FERREYRA
- Producer(s)
- Paul VACA (Alterego Media), Duilio GATTI (Tincazo Cine)
- Synopsis
- A crowd walks down a dirt road in a Tucumán town, carrying a coffin on their shoulders covered by an Argentine flag and a wide-brimmed white hat on top of it.
  
  Journalist Sibila Camps traces and relates key events in the historical context of Tucumán and the life of Mario Oscar Ferreyra, a Tucumán police officer known as "El Malevo," a symbol of violence and impunity in Argentina in the 20th century.
  
  Born into a family of sugarcane workers, Ferreyra earned the nickname "El Malevo" for his violent and reckless style. He distinguished himself in the fight against cattle rustling, but he was also accused of abuse of power, torture, and murder.
  
  In 1975, Ferreyra voluntarily joined Operation Independence, a repressive campaign that supposedly was intended to fight subversion. In the context of this operation, Ferreyra participated in kidnappings, torture, and murders of civilians.
  
  As a police chief, Ferreyra accumulated suspensions, internal investigations, and judicial cases against him. However, with the complicity of the media in Tucumán, Ferreyra created a myth of himself as a popular hero who fought crime.
  
  In 1991, Ferreyra and a group of police officers kidnapped and murdered three men who were not wanted by the Justice system. The official version speaks of a confrontation, but the version of one of the police officers involved is corroborated in a historic trial in 1993. In this trial, Ferreyra is sentenced to life in prison along with eight subordinates.
  
  After hearing the sentence, Ferreyra riots in the courts and decides to escape. With a grenade in his hand, he manages to escape in the middle of a crowd that acclaims him. He remains a fugitive for 79 days, until he is captured.
  
  Ferreyra is transferred to the Villa Urquiza prison, where in 2000 he is granted temporary releases and shortly thereafter parole. In 2008, on the verge of being arrested by the Gendarmerie to testify in a case of human rights abuses, he shoots himself in the temple in front of television cameras.
  
  The wide-brimmed white hat on the coffin. On the sides, a crowd accompanies the coffin cheering for "El Malevo."
  
  Sibila interviews Ferreyra's sons: Franco and Alain, imprisoned for separate murders in Villa Urquiza prison, they reflect on the figure of their father and relate it to their own destinies.