Return to Buenos Aires brings Dirty War to Venice

Marco Bechis's “Return to Buenos Aires” is bringing Argentina's Dirty War and its lasting effect on survivors to the Venice Film Festival, where it is competing for the top prize to be awarded Saturday.

Bechis, a 70-year-old Italian-Chilean director who lived in Argentina when he was young, was detained in a clandestine camp in 1977 and testified about it in 2020. He said that experience helped prompt the new film, 27 years after his “Olympic Garage” also dealt with secret detention centres in Buenos Aires.

“That was the trigger: I wanted to make a film about that surreal encounter between a survivor and his captors in a courtroom,” Bechis said.

“Return to Buenos Aires” follows Mariano Guerra, an Italian doctor played by Adriano Giannini, who is asked to return to Argentina to testify in a trial against military officers who kidnapped, tortured and imprisoned him for more than two years.

Bechis said the story is not his own but is drawn from research, including talks with a friend who survived four secret torture centres. “It’s not a true story, but every piece of the story is real,” he said.

Argentina's 1976-1983 dictatorship was among several Latin American military regimes of the period. Rights groups estimate about 30,000 people were killed during Argentina's dictatorship, when suspected political dissidents were kidnapped, tortured and killed.