The Disappeared

"The Disappeared" relives the horrors of Argentina's Dirty War (1976-83) through the experience of Horacio Pietragalla, a young man raised by the maid of the officer who kidnapped him after the military brutally murdered his parents. The film follows Horacio as he reconstructs the cause for which his real parents gave their lives, and, through this search, reclaims his true identity. This personal journey internalizes the tragedy that ravaged the country for seven years and exposes polarized views on state-driven terrorism in groundbreaking interviews with top military officials, concentration camp victims, human rights activists, journalists who covered the events, and members of Horacio's surrogate and biological families. This documentary represents the first time a filmmaker has followed a child of desaparecidos in his journey of discovery for a period of five years, capturing the only case in which a person was able to recover the remains of both parents. It also records the first interviews ever granted by top military officers who had remained silent for nearly a quarter of a century.