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The Silence of Others

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The Silence of Others
Film poster
SpanishEl silencio de otros
Directed byAlmudena Carracedo
Robert Bahar
Written byAlmudena Carracedo
Robert Bahar
Produced byAlmudena Carracedo
Robert Bahar
Agustín Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar
CinematographyAlmudena Carracedo
Edited byAlmudena Carracedo
Kim Roberts
Music byLeonardo Heiblum
Jacobo Lieberman
Production
companies
El Deseo
Semilla Verde Productions
Lucernam Films
Release dates
  • February 2018 (2018-02) (Berlin)
  • November 16, 2018 (2018-11-16) (Spain)
Running time
95 minutes
Countries
  • United States
  • Spain
LanguageSpanish

The Silence of Others (Template:Lang-es) is an American–Spanish documentary film written and directed by Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar,[1] which tells the story of the silenced fight of the victims from the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.

Since its release, it has received several accolades, including the Goya Award for Best Documentary, the Platino Award for Best Documentary and the News & Documentary Emmy Awards. It was one of the fifteen films shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 91st Academy Awards.[2]

Production

Filmed over six years, the documentary film follows the survivors of Francisco Franco's dictatorship as they organize the groundbreaking “Argentine Lawsuit” (Querella Argentina) in order to investigate, identify, and sanction those responsible for committing crimes against humanity during that period. The film interviews human rights lawyers, torture victims, and the children and grandchildren of those who were executed and whose remains were never allowed to be buried properly by their families. The film also interviews mothers who had their newborn children taken away from them by the State under Franco-era eugenics programs.[3]

The film was produced in association with El Deseo by Esther García Rodríguez, Agustín Almodóvar, and Pedro Almodóvar, and includes interviews with survivors and human rights activists, such as María Martín López, Ascención Mendieta, and Chato Galante, among others.[4]

Pedro Almodovar, who helped produce this documentary, returned to this theme in his subsequent feature film Parallel Mothers, which features a woman photographer (played by Penelope Cruz) and her successful campaign to exhume a mass grave in her village.

Release

The film premiered at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival in the Panorama Dokumente section.[5] It was theatrically released in Spain on 16 November 2018.[6] It also aired on La 2 on 4 April 2019, achieving almost a million spectators.[7]

The film was released in the United States as a part of American television series POV at PBS.[8]

Reception

Receiving positive reviews from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 100% based on 25 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10.[9] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 73 out of 100 based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[10]

Stephen Dalton from The Hollywood Reporter wrote about the subject of the film that “is still a very necessary story, delivered with rigor and conviction".[11] Ben Kenigsberg from The New York Times called the film "informative, if not always as specific as it might have been”.[12]

Criticism

While mainly well-received in Spain and abroad, the film has attracted criticism from some Spanish journalists for what they perceive to be inaccuracies. For example, they criticized the scene featuring the exhumation of a mass grave in the Guadalajara cemetery, with the purpose of finding the body of Timoteo Mendieta. The film did not mention the political roles of those murdered during the war and dictatorship. It also did not mention that Mendieta was a trade unionist, the fact that most of the murdered in Guadalajara were workers, and that 38% of them were unionists.[13] Rather than being done as a consequence of a "pursuit of justice", which is a theme of the film, this exhumation was actually performed under a court order for the “transfer of remains” at the request of one of his relatives. This fact was greatly criticized by other relatives and the Foro por la Memoria.[14] In the scene in which the grave is opened, a technician tells Timoteo Mendieta’s daughter, “this is your father”, identifying the body only visually, rather than using DNA testing. This identification, movingly captured in the film, later turned out to be a mistake, as noted in the last lines of the film;[15] the bones shown in that scene and identified by the ARMH technician were not those of Timoteo Mendieta. As noted at the end of the film, his bones were found in another mass grave a year later, and only then did his family actually get to bury him properly.[16] This scene was criticized as generating unrealistic expectations for other relatives of the victims of Francoism, as they may wrongly believe that it's easy to locate relatives' bodies, when in fact the actual number of successful identifications may be low.[17]

Awards and nominations

Year Award Category Recipient(s) Result Ref.
2018 Berlin International Film Festival Peace Film Prize The Silence of Others Won [18]
Panorama Audience Award Won
Medals of the Circle of Cinematographic Writers Best Documentary Film Nominated
European Film Awards Best Documentary Nominated [19]
Goya Awards Best Documentary Won [20]
2019 Feroz Awards Best Documentary Film Nominated [21]
José María Forqué Awards Best Documentary Film Won
Peabody Award Won [22]
Platino Awards Best Documentary Won [23]
2020 News & Documentary Emmy Awards Best Documentary Won [24]
Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary Won

See also

References

  1. ^ "La coproducción española 'El silencio de otros', candidata al Premio LUX del Parlamento Europeo". Audiosivual451. 9 July 2018.
  2. ^ "Academy Unveils 2019 Oscar Shortlists". The Hollywood Reporter. 17 December 2018. Retrieved 21 July 2021.
  3. ^ "'EL SILENCIO DE OTROS', APOTEÓSICO CLAMOR CONTRA LOS LADRONES DE LA MEMORIA". Fotogramas (in Spanish). 12 November 2018. Retrieved 21 July 2021.
  4. ^ "El silencio de otros': las víctimas del franquismo están "aquí y ahora"". rtve (in Spanish). 14 November 2018. Retrieved 22 July 2021.
  5. ^ "PROGRAMME 2018". Berlinale. Retrieved 21 July 2021.
  6. ^ Ruiz, Paula Arantzazu (18 December 2018). "'El silencio de otros', en la 'shortlist' de los Oscar en la categoría de Mejor documental". Sensacine.
  7. ^ "'El silencio de otros' sorprende en La 2 con un dato para recordar: 5.2% , por encima de Cuatro". verTele! (in Spanish). 5 April 2019. Retrieved 21 July 2021.
  8. ^ Robinson, Jennifer (26 September 2019). "POV: The Silence Of Others". KPBS. Retrieved 21 July 2021.
  9. ^ "The Silence of Others (2018)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Retrieved October 10, 2021.
  10. ^ "The Silence of Others (2019)". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved July 21, 2021.
  11. ^ Dalton, Stephen (February 20, 2018). "'The Silence of Others': Film Review - Berlin 2018". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved July 21, 2021.
  12. ^ Kenigsberg, Ben (May 7, 2019). "'The Silence of Others' Review: Franco's Victims Speak Out". The New York Times. Retrieved July 21, 2021.
  13. ^ "| Los otros mil Timoteo MendietaForo por la Memoria - Federación Estatal de Foros por la Memoria" (in Spanish). Retrieved 2022-11-16.
  14. ^ elDiarioclm.es (2017-05-15). "El Foro por la Memoria de Guadalajara pide anular las sentencias de las víctimas del franquismo". elDiario.es (in Spanish). Retrieved 2022-11-16.
  15. ^ Padilla, Javier (2019-05-24). "Las mentiras de "El silencio de otros"". Letras Libres (in Mexican Spanish). Retrieved 2022-11-16.
  16. ^ Veleta, Willy. "Tres errores de 'El silencio de otros'". ctxt.es | Contexto y Acción (in Spanish). Retrieved 2022-11-16.
  17. ^ Gonzalez, Daniel Palacios (2022-10-24). "Forensic Turning Points: Exhumations, Dignity, and Iconoclasm". Lingue Culture Mediazioni. 9 (1): 81–99. doi:10.7358/lcm-2022-001-pala. ISSN 2421-0293.
  18. ^ "THE AWARDS OF THE 68th BERLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL" (PDF). Berlinale. Retrieved July 21, 2021.
  19. ^ "European Film Awards Nominations: 'Cold War', 'Dogman', 'Border' Lead – Full List". 10 November 2018. Retrieved 10 November 2018.
  20. ^ "Premios Goya 2019: lista completa de ganadores". eldiario.es (in Spanish). February 4, 2019. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
  21. ^ "Premios Feroz 2019: Lista de nominados". El Mundo (in Spanish). 4 December 2018. Retrieved 10 December 2018.
  22. ^ "POV: The Silence of Others". Peabody Awards. Retrieved July 21, 2021.
  23. ^ "'Roma' obtiene nueva nominaciones a los Premios Platino" (in Spanish). Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  24. ^ "WINNERS IN DOCUMENTARY TELEVISION PROGRAMMING FOR THE 41ST ANNUAL NEWS & DOCUMENTARY EMMY® AWARDS ANNOUNCED" (PDF). National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. September 22, 2020. Retrieved June 30, 2021.
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