Argentina’s Dirty War rears its head in Venice film

Adriano Giannini, left, and director Marco Bechis pose for photographers at the red carpet for the film 'Ritorno A Buenos Airies' during the 83rd edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

Argentina’s Dirty War and its lasting effect on survivors is the subject of “Return to Buenos Aires” at Venice from Marco Bechis, himself a survivor of one of the dictatorship’s torture camps.

Bechis’s latest film comes 27 years after his “Olympic Garage” similarly dealt with one of the many clandestine detention centres in Buenos Aires set up during the 1976-1983 dictatorship to torture -- and kill -- leftists, students, intellectuals and others.

Bechis, an Italian-Chilean who lived in Argentina when he was young, was detained in such a camp in 1977 and testified about it in 2020.

“That was the trigger: I wanted to make a film about that surreal encounter between a survivor and his captors in a courtroom,” the 70-year-old director told AFP.

“Return to Buenos Aires”, which is competing for the Venice Film Festival’s top prize to be awarded Saturday, follows a series of Latin American films revisiting the brutal dictatorships of the last century.

“I’m Still Here” by Walter Salles, about one woman’s decades-long search for her husband, a victim of Brazil’s military dictatorship, won the Oscar for best foreign film last year, while “Argentina 1985” from Santiago Mitre about the famous trial against members of the dictatorial government won a Golden Globe in 2023.

Both premiered at Venice.

Also in this year’s competition is “Wild Horse 9” from Martin McDonagh, about two CIA agents who travel to Chile’s Easter Island in the months leading up to General Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 military coup.

Bechis’s latest film tells the story of Mariano Guerra, an Italian doctor who is asked to return to Argentina to testify in a trial against the military officers who kidnapped, tortured and kept him prisoner for over two years.

Guerra, played by Italian actor Adriano Giannini, is called upon to face a past he would rather forget, and wrestles with his conscience over actions he was forced to take by his captors against fellow prisoners.

Tragic figure

Argentina’s dictatorship was one of the most brutal of the slew of Latin American military regimes between the 1960s and 1980s, with rights groups estimating about 30,000 people were killed.

Suspected political dissidents were kidnapped, tortured and killed, including some who were thrown into the sea from helicopters and planes.

Bechis told AFP he found the figure of the survivor interesting -- a “tragic figure” often not considered a victim himself, he said.

“The collaborator who worked inside the camps in order to stay alive, who had to give his time and, in some way, denounce his comrades in order to survive,” he explained.

Bechis said the film’s story is not his own, but drawn heavily from research, including talks with a friend who was a survivor of four such secret torture centres.

“As in Olympic Garage, it’s not a true story, but every piece of the story is real. Everything you see in this film has a documentary basis but is combined creatively, in my own way.”