The Silence of Others
The Silence of Others follows the groundbreaking lawsuit to prosecute the crimes of Franco’s 40-year dictatorship in Spain (1939–1975), the perpetrators of which have enjoyed impunity following a 1977 amnesty. Filmed over six years, the story unfolds on two continents: in Spain, where survivors and human rights lawyers are building a case that Spanish courts refuse to admit, and in Argentina, where one judge is using the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows foreign courts to investigate crimes against humanity if the country where they occurred refuses to do so. What started as a small, grassroots effort has yielded the first-ever arrest warrants for perpetrators, including torturers, cabinet ministers, and doctors implicated in cases of stolen children. What happens when a country is forced to reckon with its past after decades of silence? This case is making history.
Almudena Carracedo was born in Madrid. She directed and produced her debut feature film, the Emmy-winning documentary Made in L.A., in the US. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, a Creative Capital Fellow, a Sundance Time Warner Documentary Fellow, a United States Artists Fellow, and the recipient of an honorary doctorate from Illinois Wesleyan University. In 2012 Almudena returned to Spain to work on The Silence of Others.
Robert Bahar was born in Philadelphia, and lives and works between Madrid, Spain and Brooklyn, New York. He won an Emmy as producer/writer of the documentary, Made in L.A., and spearheaded the three-year impact campaign that brought the film to audiences around the world. Robert is a Creative Capital Fellow, a Sundance Documentary Fellow, and holds an MFA from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema-Television.