Is democracy worth fighting for? Argentine Oscar nominee inspires a ‘yes.’

In November 1976, eight months into a military dictatorship, Graciela Lois’ husband disappeared. A month later, nursing their 3-month-old daughter, she joined other spouses, siblings, and parents searching for missing loved ones.

Collecting evidence of the dictatorship’s atrocities was dangerous, heartbreaking work. Over the next seven years, an estimated 30,000 individuals would disappear, many tortured and murdered in clandestine detention centers across Argentina.

“We all felt fear,” says Ms. Lois. “But it came second to wanting to know the truth.”

On Sunday, the drama that portrays their real-life courage, “Argentina, 1985,” is up for an Academy Award in the international feature film category. The movie, which leans heavily on actual events that unfolded in 1985, takes place only two years into Argentina’s fledgling democracy. For the first time in history, a civil court condemned and prosecuted a military dictatorship for its crimes – and it was made possible by victims like Ms. Lois, daring prosecutors, and a ragtag team that took great personal risks to ensure democracy prevailed.

In an era of “democratic recession,” where faith in democracy is faltering worldwide, the film is hitting a chord in Argentina and abroad with those who believe democracy is still worth fighting for. In 2022, 84% of people surveyed globally by watchdog Freedom House said democracy is important for their country, but only 56% said they lived in a democratic country. “Argentina, 1985” offers a poignant reminder: Democracies don’t stand on their own, but require courageous commitment from all.

“It’s not about choosing some official that’s going to make the decisions and tell us what democracy looks like,” says Ms. Lois. “It means collaborating and committing, not waiting and watching as a spectator.” She celebrates the film, but says it’s not for people like her – who lived through the terrors of that dark period – but instead for the younger generations who may need reminding about what is required of citizens for democracy to thrive.

“Democracies work,” she says. “But they work because we make them work.” 

The cost of freedom

Argentina has a strong track record of producing winning films about its dictatorship. But most, like “The Secret in Their Eyes,” which won an Oscar in 2010, focus on the horrors of the “dirty war.” Santiago Mitre’s “Argentina, 1985,” available in theaters here since September, digs into the aftermath.

What stands out is the humanity of its remarkably ordinary protagonists. Instead of seasoned human rights activists or politicians, the film’s heroes are civil servants, youth, victims, and family members of the disappeared, who suddenly find themselves responsible for holding leaders of the dictatorship to account. Their resolve earned the movie a nine-minute standing ovation during its premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

In the movie – as in real life – Argentines had little reason to trust their new democracy in 1985. The previous democratic government had lasted a mere three years before the military took over. So, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the chief prosecutor, Julio Strassera, played in the film by Ricardo Darín, at first doesn’t want any part in prosecuting the dictatorship’s most powerful military officers. He goes on to head up what would become the world’s first truth commission. He and his deputy, who heralds from a family with deep military ties, turn to a loyal band of helpers in their early 20s who don’t have careers to put on the line. They traverse the country collecting evidence for the trial.

One of these young figures is played by Leyla Bechara. The casting crew for “Argentina, 1985” discovered her on Instagram. She’d graduated into the pandemic with a degree in political science, and began posting videos about politics on social media. In preparation for her role, Ms. Bechara interviewed the real people who helped Mr. Strassera collect evidence back in 1985, and she was struck by what she calls their “courageous innocence.” These weren’t revolutionaries.

“But they were certain that something had to be done,” she says. “Sometimes it’s necessary for there to be a group of people who are naïve enough to believe that things really can change – because that’s the way they do change.”

What worries her in Argentina today is the despair, or worse, the apathy, she sees among peers who have grown disillusioned with the political system. Ms. Bechara says the movie creates space for tough conversations: “It’s motivating, because there’s a history behind you, there is someone who faced worse monsters.”

On a recent Wednesday evening, the movie is not over, but a downtown Buenos Aires movie theater breaks out in triumphant applause along with spectators in the onscreen courtroom following the closing arguments. When the theater lights come up, viewer Norberto Caffieri is flush with emotion, thinking back to 1985 when he was 14 years old.  He says the veil of terror from the dictatorship lasted into the 1990s.

“Young people [today] don’t know how costly their freedom was,” Mr. Caffieri says.

Some do. Alyona, who left Russia for Buenos Aires when the war in Ukraine began, saw the film with a group of Russians also opposed to the war. She cried throughout.

“The movie gives me hope that nothing is forever,” she says, giving only her first name out of fear of retribution for speaking out against Russia. “No dictatorship is forever. Things can change, and there can be justice.”

Never easy

The 1985 Trial of the Juntas was a first step for democracy, but the fight for truth and justice didn’t end there. The dictatorship garnered significant support among the middle class, many of whom were unaware – or in denial – of its crimes.

Were it not for the efforts of organizations like Familiares, of which Ms. Lois is still a key member, and collective memory sites, including former detention centers, Argentina’s history could have been swept under the rug.

Indeed, when Guillermo Rodolfo Pérez Roisinblit learned in 2000 that the family who raised him were not blood relatives, that he had been born to kidnapped parents in Buenos Aires’ most infamous clandestine detention center, he knew little about the dictatorship. His supposed father was in the Air Force, his high school on a military base. Since his biological grandmothers – both part of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo – found him, he has given hundreds of talks nationwide about the human rights abuses that shaped his life. He sees “Argentina, 1985” as a powerful tool for historic understanding, combating the ignorance he still encounters today.

“Every time I tell my story, no matter how many times I’ve told it, it touches another fiber,” says Mr. Pérez Roisinblit, whose biological parents remain missing.

“It has never been easy, but it has always been necessary.”

“Argentina, 1985” is available on Amazon Prime Video. The film, in Spanish with English subtitles, is rated R for language.