"Documentary film as memory and evidence: The use of visual media in trials for crimes against humanity in Argentina"

Dr. Crowder-Taraborrelli’s presentation will focus on the use of film documentation (in particular, testimonios from victims of torture and relatives of the disappeared) in the trials for crimes against humanity in Argentina. He will discuss how the film footage of the 1985 Trials of the Juntas was forced underground and became an unauthorized archive of memory. He will also explore how documentary film has more recently come to supplement the presentation of memory-based evidence in the trials for appropriation of children, referred to as "El Plan Sistemático" [The Systematic Plan].