New York City’s Film Forum has announced the US theatrical premiere of the riveting Argentine documentary The Trial / El juicio by Ulises de la Órden, which reveals never-before-seen testimony by victims of Argentina’s dictatorship in the largest trial for crimes against humanity since Nuremberg. The film, which premiered at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival and was featured at the Museum of Modern Art as part of Doc Fortnight. opens on Friday, September 22, with director de la Órden in attendance on opening weekend.
Last year’s Oscar-nominated feature Argentina, 1985 rekindled interest in Argentina’s murderous military dictatorship (1976-1983). The Trial, based on never-before-seen courtroom footage, is a shocking record of Junta leaders brought to justice in the first major tribunal for crimes against humanity since Nuremberg.
Facing a group of nine former military officers — including the infamous Jorge Rafael Videla, onetime President of Argentina — survivors and parents of the disappeared (los desaparecidos) recount harassment, property theft, kidnapping (high school students abducted during the “Night of the Pencils”), the theft of newborn babies, torture, rape, and mass killings. The defense testifies that their “dirty war” was a response to subversives and leftist terror. The chief prosecutor legendarily ends his closing argument: “¡Nunca más!”
The Trial is constructed in two parts, organized by thematic clusters from 530+ hours of testimony footage (composed entirely of video shot during the proceedings, captured on two stationary video cameras). The recordings, initially stashed from public reach by trial judges, sat in Norwegian government vaults in Oslo for more than two decades before being rediscovered.
