FILM 1: Botín de guerra / Spoils of War (Argentina, David Blaustein, 2000), 58 mins., CANVAS

Botín de Guerra / Spoils of War (1999)

Dir. David Blaustein. Televisión Española, 112 min.

Plot Summary:

“First-hand accounts from the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who dared to challenge the ruthless dictatorship of Argentina from 1976 to 1983 and have sought to find their missing grandchildren. Children now reunited with their families, and some who still hope to be, contribute.”

Questions:

1. The film opens with some animated drawings by Enrique Breccia, portraying the expropriation of indigenous children from villages in the 19^th What implicit message does it relay about Argentine history?
2. How would you explain the film’s title?
3. What is the dual significance of the extreme wide-angle lens showing the entrance to Buenos Aires along the River Plate?
4. Whose voices do we hear in the background as the camera flies over the river?
5. How did the work of the Abuelas evolve? What is the social background of the women involved in it? What sort of risks have they run?
6. What sorts of solidarity have the women encountered in their search for the disappeared and their fight to bring the criminals to justice?
7. What is the “índice de abuelismo” (‘grandparenthood index’)?
8. What different sorts of stories do the missing children tell about their lives with their adoptive families? For instance, what story is related by Carla Rutila Artés, who was appropriated by torturer Juan Carlos Ruffo? And by Tatiana Sviligoy, who was taken to an orphanage and then adopted in good faith?
9. What mood is communicated by the song, “Sin cadenas” (‘Without Chains’), played by Los Pericos at the end of the film? What personal relationship does the band have with the disappeared?