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OUTSIDE THE WALLS

EXTRAMUROS

By Liv ZARETZKY

Documentary - Completed 2016

Miguel Angel Molfino is a writer. He has committed his youth and his life to the revolution. The military dictatorship in Argentina tortures, imprisons and massacres his family.
In jail, writing becomes his support for ever.
The power of words and silence is what "Outside the walls" explores.

- Year of production
- 2016
- Genres
- Documentary
- Countries
- ARGENTINA
- Languages
- SPANISH
- Budget
- 0.3 - 0.6 M$
- Duration
- 70 mn
- Director(s)
- Liv ZARETZKY
- Writer(s)
- Liv ZARETZKY
- Cast
- Miguel Angel MOLFINO
- Producer(s)
- Mayra BOTTERO (MAYRA BOTTERO), Florencia FRANCO (MACHITA), Gabriela CUETO (MITAI), Liv ZARETZKY (MACHITA)
- Synopsis
- Miguel Angel Molfino is 65 years old; he is a writer and lives in Resistencia, in the province of Chaco, in Argentina.
  During the '60s the idea of "another possible world" expanded. The triumphs of the Cuban revolution, the French May, the independence of Algeria, are some of the milestones that marked the era. In Argentina there were also revolutionary groups of different tendencies.
  The family house was burning with political passion. All the siblings were militant activist of politico-military organizations. The mother had been widowed very young and she was very closed to her children. Miguel is the eldest of six.
  In 1976 the military took the power in the country with the mission to annihilate all revolutionary focus and any ideas that could be "subversive".
  After spending a few years clandestine, Miguel is arrested and deprived of his liberty. He suffers torture and spends five years rotating through various prisons.
  In that terrifying, almost animal place, reading and writing help him to resist and preserve his humanity. Although his texts disappear after each requisition, Miguel does not abandon writing. In this context he decides to become a writer.
  In those years the whole family suffers persecution, imprisonment, exile and his sister Marcela is kidnapped with her husband, Guillermo Amarilla. Both are still missing (“disappeared”).
  In jail, the picture of his mother is snatched and he is told, “After all, you won’t see her anymore.” Several days later he finds out that her mother is kidnapped in Peru and appears dead in a hotel in Madrid.
  When Miguel regains freedom, he spends years trying to rewrite the missing texts, trying to write word for word what he had lost. But this is the most terrible thing of accepting the loss; they will never be again the original texts.
  The wounds are large and they are still open. Miguel confesses that he tried several times to write the story of her mother, but he cannot deal with it. He says he is not able to write about that time.
  A few years ago the family received the news that Marcela was pregnant when she was kidnapped. That baby was stolen and raised by a military officer and his wife. But when he grew up, a storm of suspicion approached him and took him to reunite with his family.
  The emotion of this encounter with his nephew motivated Miguel to write for the first time a text about the family’s history.
  The claim for “Memory, Truth and Justice” for all his mates who were murdered and disappeared is his current reason for struggle.
  Reading and writing are his salvation, the way he found to live between pain and death.
  He has a great sense of humor, which he makes special use of it to escape when tragedy invades the story.
  “Outside the walls” is set in the present, is set after horror. The documentary delves into what it is difficult to talk about among those who remained alive, family taboos are also taboos of the country.
  The power of the word, what is said and silences.