REVIEW
CINEMA
The transmission of
memory in the struggle for
justice: The silence
of others
David González
Historian, project manager
at the EUROM
T
he documentary The silence of others (2018) describes the personal and collective
struggle in Spanish society to denounce and prosecute the crimes of the Franco
dictatorship. Directed by Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar, and produced
by, among others, the Almodóvar brothers, the movie has been presented at numerous
international film festivals and has won several prizes, among them the Spanish Academy’s
Goya award for best documentary in 2019.
The film tells the story of the querella argentina, a lawsuit brought in the courts of
Argentina against the crimes of the Franco regime. The film overlays the two processes:
the recording and structuring of the documentary, and the legal process itself. In both
cases, the protagonists give real-life testimony of the events. The suit was presented in
an Argentine criminal court in April 2010, by Judge María Servini, based on the principles
of universal justice and the imprescriptible nature of crimes against humanity. In Spain,
Judge Baltasar Garzón had earlier opened an inquiry into the crimes of the dictatorship,
but was forced to abandon the investigation after being denounced by several ultra-right
organizations for breach of trust. Although he was later acquitted, his removal signalled the
end of the case in Spain and the termination of any attempt by the Spanish courts to judge
the crimes of the Franco dictatorship. So the decision was taken to appeal to international
justice: initially, the lawsuit had only two plaintiffs, but they were soon joined by several
hundred more thanks to the social mobilization and media campaigns launched in Spain.
This mobilization led to the creation in 2013 of CEAQUA, a nationwide group coordinating
support for the querella argentina.
The silence of others shows the complexities of an even broader process in which both
the film and the lawsuit are inscribed: the process known in Spain as the “recovery of
historical memory”. The starting point of this process was the first scientific exhumation of
84
Observing Memories
ISSUE 3