“‘You know when the struggles begin, but not when they end.’ When filmmaker Fernanda Restrepo Arizmendi's father said this to her, he was speaking from experience. Every Wednesday, he goes to protest on the square of Ecuador's Presidential Palace. Until her death in a car accident, Fernanda's mother wrote letter after letter to the president. In 1988, when Fernanda was just 10 years, old, her brothers Santiago (17) and Andrés (14) mysteriously disappeared. A year later, the family discovered that the police had kidnapped, severely beaten, and then murdered the two boys for no apparent reason at all. The bodies were dumped in the Yambo River, never to be found again. With My Heart in Yambo is Fernanda's heartrending contribution to the processing of a devastating family trauma. In a poetic, contemplative voice-over, she makes a brave attempt to arrange the events in an appropriate manner. In the process, the film becomes a self-investigation: how did her brothers' death determine her own life? But like her parents, the filmmaker is also looking for rehabilitation. For as long as the Ecuadorean authorities shamelessly continue to cover up the case, it will be difficult to lead a normal life - if not altogether impossible.” —International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA)
WITH MY HEART IN YAMBO / CON MI CORAZÓN EN YAMBO
A film by María Fernanda Restrepo
(Ecuador, 2011, 135 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
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