Las cruces

One of the most important virtues of cinema is its documentary quality; the capacity to create testimony. The directors Teresa Arredondo and Carlos Vásquez Méndez take a journey into the past, specifically September 1973, a few days after the Coup d’état. 19 workers at a paper factory who took part in a union protest were disappeared. In an unusually structured documentary, the story is told by voices reading out case files – so powerful that they take up the entire screen – in which every word generates both potential meanings and mysteries that will never be unraveled. After 40 years during which the victims’ whereabouts were unknown, a policeman decides to talk for the first time, confessing to what happened and naming those responsible for the Massacre of Laja and San Rosendo. The Crosses runs through different kinds of images and tones of voice, following the trail of the investigation in pictures and newly revealed truths. (Mar del Plata International Film Festival)