\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t Netflix announced on Tuesday the production of a new political thriller directed by filmmaker Santiago Mitre, who earned an Academy Award nomination for Argentina, 1985 in 2023.<\/p>\n
The film, starring Peter Lanzani and Ver\u00f3nica Llin\u00e1s, reportedly centers on the infiltration of \u201ca high-ranking officer into groups that were peacefully organizing to demand information about detained relatives during Argentina\u2019s military dictatorship.\u201d<\/p>\n
While details of the plot weren\u2019t released, the short synopsis closely resembles the true story of the Church of the Holy Cross kidnappings, in which military personnel abducted a group of activists that included the head of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Azucena Villaflor, French nuns Alice Domon and L\u00e9onie Duquet, and other relatives of disappeared.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The main operation took place in December 1977 after a meeting at the Buenos Aires church, and was led by infamous repressor Alfredo Astiz, who had impersonated the brother of a desaparecido in order to infiltrate the group and obtain intelligence on the Mothers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the time, under the direction of editor-in-chief Robert Cox, the Herald was the only media outlet that reported on the kidnappings. The story ran on its front page, as well as several follow-up stories the following days. In his editorial that week, Cox raised the question of whether the kidnappings had been perpetrated by the government.<\/p>\n
The Herald\u2018s coverage of the kidnapping. The victims of the Holy Cross kidnappings were taken to the ESMA death camp, tortured, and later thrown alive into the ocean from a Navy airplane. Decades later, the Argentine Team of Forensic Anthropology identified some of their bodies, which had washed up on Buenos Aires shores a few days afterwards. That process was key to prove the systematic use of \u201cdeath flights\u201d as the dictatorship\u2019s modus operandi for mass murder.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to Mitre, the project focuses on \u201cthe everyday dimension of political violence\u201d rather than attempting to depict an entire historical period.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis film reconstructs a real, specific moment and does so from the inside, following ordinary people in an extreme situation,\u201d Mitre said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt does not try to encompass an entire era, but instead observes how violence seeps into daily life. It is a thriller based on real events, where what is most unsettling is that nothing seems extraordinary \u2014 until it is too late.\u201d<\/p>\n
While rumors of Lanzani playing Navy Lieutenant Jorge \u2018Tigre\u2019 Acosta \u2014 head of the ESMA death squad \u2014\u00a0 circulated last year, the official announcement appears to indicate Lanzani\u2019s role could actually be based, in some form, on Astiz. Known as \u201cthe Angel of Death,\u201d Astiz is currently serving a life sentence for several crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n
Lanzani, who also appeared in Argentina, 1985 alongside Ricardo Dar\u00edn, described the role as one of the most challenging of his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccepting this character means accepting discomfort from day one,\u201d he said. \u201cIt requires understanding real mechanisms of manipulation and betrayal, not caricatures. The responsibility is to neither soften nor exaggerate the character, but to make him believable.\u201d<\/p>\n
You may also be interested in: The nun who wanted to change the world<\/p>\n
Llin\u00e1s, who will reportedly portray \u201ca mother searching for her son,\u201d said she approached the role from a human perspective rather than a symbolic one.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m interested in her clarity, her determination and the way she transforms pain into action,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a story about collective courage, but also about very concrete personal decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Written by Mitre and Mariano Llin\u00e1s, the film will be produced by La Uni\u00f3n de los R\u00edos (Argentina) \u2014 in which Mitre is a founding partner \u2014\u00a0 and France\u2019s Maneki Films, which co-produced Mitre\u2019s 2022 film 15 Ways to Kill Your Neighbor. The shooting will begin in March at multiple locations in the city of Buenos Aires and surrounding areas.<\/p>\n
La Uni\u00f3n de los R\u00edos\u2019 producer Agustina Llambi Campbell said the project carries particular significance amid ongoing challenges facing Argentina\u2019s film industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt a critical moment for our national cinema, we embrace this project with responsibility, gratitude and the unshakable joy of making films,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Netflix did not announce a release date.<\/p>\n
Cover image, left to right: Pedro Lanzani, Santiago Mitre, and Ver\u00f3nica Llin\u00e1s. Photo credits: Sebasti\u00e1n Arpesella \/ Marieta Vazquez \/ Gabriel Machado<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Netflix announced on Tuesday the production of a new political thriller directed by filmmaker Santiago Mitre, who earned an Academy Award nomination for Argentina, 1985 in 2023. The film, starring Peter Lanzani and Ver\u00f3nica Llin\u00e1s, reportedly centers on the infiltration of \u201ca high-ranking officer into groups that were peacefully organizing to demand information about detained […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":30462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1366,8765,8766,8767],"tags":[1364,8762,8763,8764],"class_list":["post-30461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-film-series","category-peter-lanzani","category-santiago-mitre","category-veronica-llinas","tag-film-series","tag-peter-lanzani","tag-santiago-mitre","tag-veronica-llinas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}