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THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES

EL SECRETO DE SUS OJOS

By Juan José CAMPANELLA

HADDOCK FILMS - as PROD

Thriller - Completed 2009

Benjamín Espósito, a secretary of a court in Buenos Aires, is about to retire and decides to write a novel based on a case that deeply affected him thirty years ago. The history crosses the Argentina’s turbulent years of the 70’s, when the air was rarefied and nothing was what it seemed to be.

- Year of production
- 2009
- Genres
- Thriller
- Countries
- ARGENTINA
- Languages
- SPANISH
- Director(s)
- Juan José CAMPANELLA
- Writer(s)
- Eduardo SACHERI, Juan José CAMPANELLA
- Cast
- Ricardo DARÍN, Soledad VILLAMIL, Pablo RAGO, Javier GODINO, Guillermo FRANCELLA
- ISAN
- 0000-0002-3C36-0000-Y-0000-0000-9
- EIDR
- 10.5240/F7F8-557D-9452-B58D-60A4-U
- Producer(s)
- Gerardo HERRERO (TORNASOL FILMS), Vanessa RAGONE (HADDOCK FILMS), Juan José CAMPANELLA (100 BARES)
- Synopsis
- Benjamín Esposito spent his entire working life as a Criminal Court employee. Recently retired, with time on his hands, he decides to write a novel. He doesn’t need to invent a story: during his years as a civil servant for the judicial system, he was witness to a tragic true story. In 1974, his court was assigned the investigation into the rape and murder of a beautiful young woman.
  Esposito goes to the scene of the crime, where the poor young woman suffered rape and violence. He meets Ricardo Morales, who married her just before it happened and loved her deeply. Out of sympathy for Ricardo’s grief, Esposito attempts to help find the murderer, though he will have to fight against the clumsy inertia of the courts and the police. He has the valuable aid of Sandoval, his employee and friend, who occasionally seeks release from his routine existence in drinking until he blacks out. He also has the help of Irene, his direct boss, the secretary of the court, whom he loves secretly and hopelessly.
  The search for the murderer is anything but simple. No clues remain at the scene of the crime and Esposito must use hunches and conjecture to make any progress. Argentina in 1974 is not a peaceful place. Violence, hatred, and death govern people’s lives and fates.
  In this increasingly hostile and dark setting, Esposito’s task takes him deep into a growing monstrous violence. No longer an observer, he becomes an unwilling protagonist, ever closer to danger.
  Those stormy events affect both the young Esposito of 1974 and the Esposito of today, as they sweep along the older aspiring writer. By agreeing to open up his memories and relive them, he has set in motion the wheels of the terrible mechanism of memory. His memories are not innocent, neutral or aseptic. Esposito writes, and as he does, he relives a past that awakens his demons: his decisions, confusion, and irreparable errors.
  As he moves ahead, Esposito understands that it is too late now to stop. Telling what happened in the past is no longer a mere pastime. It becomes the narrow, winding road he must take to comprehend and justify his life, to lend meaning to the years he has left, and to face the woman he has loved for thirty years.
- Partners & financing
- Productoras: Tornasol Films S.A. / Haddock Films S.R.L. / 100 Bares S.A.
  Productores asociados: Telefe
  Con la participación de TVE / Canal+ España
  Con el apoyo de ICAA / INCAA
  Con la financiación de ICO