BURNT ORANGES Synopsis

BURNT ORANGES is an experimental documentary, 90 minutes long, about the long-term effects and repercussions, personal and social, of Argentina's 1970's state terrorism. The film is timely. It has strong humanitarian content and establishes links between the struggles of the Argentine people, to recover social principles and communal ties, with today's necessity to defend human rights, preserve human dignity, and democratic values.

The film vividly reveals current life in Buenos Aires through the eyes of a long-gone native, while it also records and uncovers compelling testimonies of resistance, transformation, and hope. Juxtaposing an intimate first person witness narration with interviews, documentary, and re-created footage, issues of memory, historical time, identity, love, loss and accountability emerge.

Fundamental to the film are the voices of members of Argentine human rights organizations: Mothers of the Disappeared, Grandmothers of the Disappeared, HIJOS (Sons and Daughters of the Disappeared), and also governmental figures of the 1976-83 military dictatorship who explain their position. Other witnesses include the former chief editor of the Daily Buenos Aires Herald, Bob Cox, and Alicia Partnoy -a poet and a survivor of torture in a detention center, both currently living in the U.S. Together, these voices contribute to our understanding of core questions of human action, the potential for creation and destruction, and the necessity of accountability.

BURNT ORANGES is a multilayered film digitally recorded. It is the first film made by a woman who was both a first-hand witness and a fortunate survivor of the events that dismembered her entire generation. The title, BURNT ORANGES, refers to a childhood memory of the director and is the organizing metaphor of the film; it embodies change and transformational life experience, the witnessing of war and the memory of war, and the complex workings of elapsed time on individuals and cultures.

Seeking to unravel the complex fabric of a troubled history, Malagrino travels through the vibrant city of Buenos Aires and retraces multiple journeys. She explores the intricacies and the conflicts of memory and how the past reverberates in the present.

The film has the very personal tone of lived experience and addresses historical issues in global context. In close contact with members of several Argentine human rights organizations - which have become international- Malagrino examines their remarkable practices of resistance and transformation, and their organized efforts of acknowledgment such as trials and truth commissions.

The film celebrates the ongoing individual and collective efforts to process, to confront, and to heal the effects of the political violence of the past.

Some of the Participants in Burnt Oranges Include:


Madres De Plaza de Mayo Linea Fundadora