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INVASION

By Abner BENAIM

Documentary - Completed 2014

Where were you? is a documentary project about the collective memory of a country. The invasion of Panama by the U.S in 1989 will serve to explore how a people remember, transform, and often forget their past in order re-define their identity and become who they are today.

- Year of production
- 2014
- Genres
- Documentary
- Countries
- PANAMA
- Languages
- SPANISH
- Duration
- 94 mn
- Director(s)
- Abner BENAIM
- Writer(s)
- Abner BENAIM
- Producer(s)
- Abner BENAIM (Apertura Films), Alejandro ISRAEL (Ajimolido Films)
- Synopsis
- Where were you? is a documentary project about the collective memory of a country. The invasion of Panama by the U.S in 1989 will serve to explore how a people remember, transform, and often forget their past in order re-define their identity and become who they are today.
  On the night of December 20th 1989 the U.S. massively invaded the otherwise peaceful country of Panama. George Bush (father) made it clear he wanted General Noriega, an ex CIA friend turned rogue, out of power. The Panama Canal, a strategic asset for the U.S., seemed to be at risk. For two weeks Panama’s tropical backdrop became a testing ground for new weapons. Noriega handed himself over and was convicted to a US jail for drug trafficking and later in France for another sentence. 22 years later, Noriega, an old man, was recently extradited to Panam where he is serving other pending sentences in jail. His return to Panama made the faded memory of the invasion and the questions it raises come alive again. Have the Panamanians faced the hurt, the guilt, the shame that came about after the invasion? Or has it all been tucked under the carpet? Has this traumatic experience been dealt with at all by Panama as one? Or is it still fragmented in each individual's home, in each family's painful memories?
  The invasion has been put aside by the establishment for different reasons, the ruling party after the invasion had to live with the guilt and shame of being put in power by the US, at a heavy cost of civilian lives for Panama. The subsequent government did not want to talk about the invasion because they used to be General Noriega's political arm, and most regular people in Panama seem to think there is no need for remembering tragedy, loss and violence. These ugly memories seem to collide with Panama's self image of a tropical paradise where nothing bad ever happens, where its all about business or pleasure. But even though the invasion has been systematically neglected by
  Panama's institutions, it is still very much present in the minds of the people who experienced it. Witht this documentary we aim at capturing those memories, in first person, from the individuals who experienced it, and make them come together to tell a collective tale.
  The documentary’s narrative will focus on characters whose lives were deeply shaken by the invasion; each of them takes us on a journey through their past and present. We have talked to civilians who suffered from the US attacks, Panamanian Defence Forces who fought in isolated, symbolic battles, Para-military personnel who wanted to fight but could not, Politicians who justify their actions at the time, friends of the church who clarify their role as negotiators between Noriega and the US, and other people involved directly in this moment in history, from the regular person in the street who participated in the looting, to former General Noriega himself.
  Through informal conversations with our characters we get a feeling of what happened and what is the meaning of the invasion, as seen from today looking back at December 1989, and by listening and observing how people tell about the invasion, we infer lots of what life in Panama is like today. We witness how Panama turned into a real economic power in Central America, now called “The Singapore of the Caribbean”, and how there are many new ways of exploiting its riches. The Invasion of 1989 is a platform, a pretense, to talk about the perils of sovereignty, democracy and other endangered virtues of today’s ultra-capitalist Panama, and to explore the mechanisms through which memory is turned into history, and how our recent past shapes the identity of a new Panama.
- Beginning of shooting
- Jul 01, 2013