Argentina: Children of the Dictatorship speak out in Interactive French Documentary

The Blogtrotters are a collaborative video blog from France who in their 9th project are travelling to Argentina to make Hijos, a collective documentary on the missing children of the dictatorship, trying to trace back their origins to their disappeared parents.

patchwork of black and white portraits of disappeared people

Disappeared detainees CC-BY Ha+

On the project website, an introductory video explains what they intend to do with their online documentary:

During their journey to Argentina they've been updating constantly through their twitter account, facebook page, pictures on flickr and website video posts. As they investigate, capture images and videos or interview people, they are receiving real time comments, suggestions and are generating conversations which in turn determines what course the documentary will take.

As they explain on their site, this interaction with online citizens will extend their initiative and broaden the topic:

Les internautes pourront influencer le processus éditorial. Ils pourront nous suggérer des personnes à voir, des lieux à visiter, ou nous posez des questions. A charge pour nous d’hierachiser ces apports et d’intégrer cette participation sans nuire à la ligne éditoriale générale.

Online citizens will be involved in the edition process. They will be able to suggest people to be interviewed, places to visit, or ask us questions. Our task will be to grade these contributions according to their importance and to include this participation without harming the main editorial line.
The Blogtrotters will be in Argentina from June 9th to June 22nd, and so far there are many videos uploaded on their site, which has a mechanical translator option at the bottom if you can't read French. One of the videos [fr]takes us to Memory Park in Argentina, where thousands of names with the age they were when they were disappeared or killed are inscribed in stone walls so that families can pay homage to their loved ones. The inscription on top of the wall reads:  these are the names of both the murdered and disappeared victims of state terrorism and of those who died while fighting for the same ideals of justice and equal rights.

They also visited  the offices of a scientific NGO which is dedicated to identifying remains that have been found in order to give peace of mind to families who have waited decades to know the whereabouts of their disappeared children and siblings. So far, 100 of the 500 newborns who disappeared while the parents were kidnapped have been reunited with their families.  Here is their video interview, this time held in English:

And in this other heartwrenching interview [fr], they speak with Ana Maria Careaga, who herself was kidnapped when she was only 16, then she was released and left the country in exile. Her mother,  a member of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo group, remained in Argentina and was killed as she was leaving Mass in the Church of Santa Cruz.

Thanks to Suzanne Lehn for her collaboration in translating content for this post.

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