1. Argentina’s Missing Children

2. During the “National Reorganization Process” from 1976-1983 at least 500 children were abducted by the regime. These children were born in prison either because they were the product of rape, or because their mothers were pregnant when they were taken. The children were then adopted out to either military families or allies of the regime under the belief that they would be raised free from “subversive” influences.

3. The Abuelas of the Plaza de Mayo In 1977 the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo formed as an offshoot of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo to search out information on the children’s whereabouts. With the restoration of democracy in 1983 the Alfonsin administration established the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP) to delve into the regime’s human rights abuses. The commission recruited help from American geneticists. The result was the formation of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAP) who used Forensic Anthropolgy Techniques and later DNA science to identify both the disappeared and locate the missing children.

4. The Grandmothers and the EAAP also established a National Genetic Data Bank containing samples from families searching for their children. As of 2015, 119 children have been located, while 250 have been identified. In one of the more famous cases, Estela Carlotto who founded the Abuelas located her grandson: musician Ignacio Montoya, in 2015. She was 84: Estela recalls: “‘That’s my grandson,’ I thought. All the love I’d kept for him came over me, to tell him how much I loved him, how much I’d looked for him. He stood his ground, holding back. I, of course, had been travelling around the world looking for a baby, looking for a child, looking for a young man, and I’d always thought: ‘When I find him, you can all meet him because you’ve all helped me look for him.’” She soon saw she had to be more careful. “A grandmother’s anxiety wants everything to be fast, but there’s been cases where it’s taken years for a grandchild to accept their grandmother. So my advice to the grandmothers always is: give them time – that’s how you show your love. You must not get angry, you must not hurry them, you must demand nothing.” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/07/grandmothers-of-plaza-de-mayo-36-year-hunt-for-stolen-child

5. Legal Questions In 2010 under Cristina Kirschner’s administration, the criminal code was amended to make DNA testing compulsory for the children of those suspected of receiving stolen babies. The adoptive parents are then put through an investigation to determine how much they knew. As a result of the new legislation, many of the people who devised the appropriation and illegal adoption scheme, as well as the parents who adopted the children knowing the circumstances under which they became available for adoption, are now facing charges in Argentine courts. The new law also, however, creates a conundrum. The children of the disappeared are now legal adults. While some of them submit to the testing voluntarily, others refuse out of loyalty to their adoptive families. The new law would compel them to do so in violation of their privacy rights.

6. Questions for discussion The Official Story Talk about your impressions of the film. What were the film’s strengths and weaknesses? Were there any scenes that you found impacting? How do you feel about the ending? Do you think this film gives a faithful account of the final years of the Argentine dictatorship? How does Luis Puenzo communicate the experiences of the regime’s survivors? How does Alicia’s character progress throughout the film? Why is so focused on finding the truth about her daughter? Do you think she was right in pursuing the truth? Discuss Roberto’s character. Is he a villain in the traditional sense? What is his motivation? What is his relationship to his wife and daughter? To his parents and brother? Both No and The Official Story deal with post-dictatorial transitions to democracy and the attempt of Latin American societies to negotiate recently lived historical trauma. How do the two films compare to each other in that sense? Which is more effective? Finally, what is your position on the 2010 Law requiring suspected children of the disappeared to submit to genetic testing? Do you agree that they should be compelled to do this in the name of justice? Or are their privacy rights more important?