50 Years of Argentina on Film

As President Milei takes selfies with Netanyahu, a season of films reflects on the 5 decades that have led Argentina to where it is today. 

The Dirty War and its aftermath

The Argentine Film Season at The Garden Cinema marks the 50th anniversary of the US-sponsored military coup of 24 March 1976. On that day, the armed forces overthrew a democratically elected government and installed a dictatorship. This was part of US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s war on communism in Latin America. The military regime unleashed a “Dirty War” during which 30,000 people were disappeared. The military executed and imprisoned many, and forced others into exile. Furthermore, the dictatorship had fractured civil society and dismantled unions and social movements. Its end in 1983 ushered in neoliberal economic policies which exacerbated inequalities. Fast forward to 2026 and Milei is deregulating labour laws and rolling back environmental rights.

In addition, in the decades that followed, the omertà that surrounded that period had long-lasting legal and psychological consequences. Official efforts towards accountability have been patchy. The first post-dictatorship government took initial measures, such as the Trial of the Juntas. Yet, subsequent laws to appease the military were passed to curtail them.  It was mostly activists and civil organisations that actively sought justice for the “desaparecidos”.  Groups like the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, fought throughout the Dirty War and since the country’s return to democracy in 1983 to reveal the truth about their fate. And now, 50 years on, Milei is actively downplaying the atrocities and dismantling efforts to preserve historical memory. In March, a group of UN experts warned about “alarming setbacks” in the country’s commitment to memorialisation and justice:

“Although there have been oscillations and gaps, for decades the country has made major progress in the fight against impunity and to ensure the rights to truth and memory. […] Unfortunately, today we are seeing a rapid deterioration of Argentina’s global leadership in this area.”

Argentina — Cinema as a release valve

Yet, in those decades, Argentine cinema re-emerged with extraordinary force, confronting the trauma of those years. The programme depicts the complex ways in which Argentinian society has grappled with the fallout of the dictatorship. They also offer a nuanced account of the subsequent ever-changing socioeconomic landscape. They articulate taboos, frustrations, and issues that are too absent in politics and media, from unaccountability to the rights of Argentina’s indigenous population. 

The season opens with a screening of the hilarious anthology hit Wild Tales (Relatos salvajes). Its cultural impact on the country was such that character names entered everyday slang. Ricardo Darín’s “Bombita” became shorthand for someone raging at bureaucratic excesses. Journalists picked up on its depiction of people railing against a broken system to skewer the authorities. Darín also stars in two other films. He’s a con artist in the twisty heist classic Nueve Reinas and as a retired legal counsellor in Oscar winner El secreto de sus ojos/The Secret in Their Eyes. A highly polished and tightly scripted thriller, the film reckons with three decades of military immunity and state-sanctioned violence.

Allegory of the war

It is one of a spate of films that dealt with the Dirty War by “allegorising” the violence using genre film tropes from horror, crime, and comedy. They include (recently departed) Luis Puenzo’s  La historia oficial, which addresses the plight of the disappeared through a fictionalised account of a mother who suspects her adopted child may have been kidnapped at birth. The award-winning film-within-a-film satire La Pelicula del Rey allows director Carlos Sorin to trace a line from colonial violence to the current state-sanctioned violence. Similarly, Lucrecia Martel’s mesmerising allegory Zama reflects the underlying trauma of the country’s colonial legacy and bureaucratic dysfunction. 

The season runs from 8 May to 19 June. For full listings, visit The Garden Cinema.

Featured image via SerArgentino