Approaching Trauma in Post- Dictatorship Argentina: Using Techniques of Fiction in Documentary Film to Recover from the Past

The new wave of Argentine filmmakers of the post-dictatorship generation have used the documentary as a medium to question constructions of history, identity, and memory in the aftermath of traumatic events. The three films I have chosen to examine foreground the themes of loss and the difficulties inherent in attempting to represent universal "truth." These young directors are confronted with the politically motivated "official histories," and yet they embark on projects of personal importance that showcase lost referents, missed experiences, and ideological changes. By incorporating various forms of fiction into their films, they are asking viewers to consider the ultimate goal of documentary cinema. Albertina Carri, Mariana Arruti, and Andrés Di Tella all make bold statements about how they, as individuals, relate to the traumas of a past that has been, for all intents and purposes, erased.