The Silence of Others reveals the the urgent and ongoing struggle of victims of Spain’s 40-year dictatorship under General Franco, who continue to seek justice to this day. Filmed over six years, the film follows victims and survivors as they organize the groundbreaking “Argentine Lawsuit” and fight a state-imposed amnesia of crimes against humanity, in a country still divided four decades into democracy. Executive Produced by Pedro Almodóvar, Agustín Almodóvar, and Esther García. Winner of the Berlinale Panorama Audience Award and Berlinale Peace Film Prize, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sheffield Doc/Fest, Top 10 Audience Favourite at HotDocs.

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The Silence of Others offers a cinematic portrait of the first attempt in history to prosecute crimes of Franco’s 40-year dictatorship in Spain (1939-1975), whose perpetrators have enjoyed impunity for decades due to a 1977 amnesty law. It brings to light a painful past that Spain is reluctant to face, even today, decades after the dictator’s death.

Filmed with intimate access 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 a judge has taken it on 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.

The implications of the case are global, as Spain’s transition from dictatorship to democracy continues to be hailed as a model to this day. The case also marks an astonishing reversal, for it was Spain that pioneered universal jurisdiction to bring down former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, and yet now it is an Argentine judge who must bring Spain’s own past to light.

The Silence of Others tells the story of this groundbreaking international lawsuit through the voices of five survivors who have broken Spain’s “pact of silence” and become plaintiffs in the case, including victims of torture, parents of stolen children, and family members who are fighting to recover loved ones’ bodies from mass graves across Spain. Guiding this monumental effort are Carlos Slepoy, the human rights lawyer who co-led the case against Pinochet, and Ana Messuti, a philosopher of law.

The case is making history: 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. It has brought the nearly forgotten case to the front page of The New York Times and has stirred a flurry of international attention.

Through this dramatic, contemporary story, The Silence of Others speaks to universal questions of how societies transition from dictatorship to democracy and how individuals confront silence and fight for justice. What happens when a country is forced to reckon with its past after so many years of silence? Can justice be done after so long?

Direction: Almudena Carracedo, Robert Bahar

Script: Almudena Carracedo, Robert Bahar, Kim Roberts, Ricardo Acosta

Production: Almudena Carracedo

Co-Production: Robert Bahar

Cinematography: Almudena Carracedo

Editing: Kim Roberts A.C.E, Ricardo Acosta, C.C.E

Sound: Steve Miller

Original Score: Leonardo Heiblum, Jacobo Lieberman

Original Title: THE SILENCE OF OTHERS

Original Language: Spanish

Subtitles: English

Film Production Countries: Spain, United States of America

Website: www.TheSilenceofOthers.com

Statement of the Director/s
How we started
In 2010, the story of Spain’s “stolen children” began to come out. The story of these crimes, with roots in the early days of Franco’s rule, led us to explore the marginalization and silencing of victims of many Franco-era crimes, ranging from extrajudicial killings at the end of the Spanish Civil War to torture that took place as recently as 1975.
As we began to learn more, we were baffled by basic questions: how could it be that Spain, unlike other countries emerging from repressive regimes, had had no Nuremberg Trials, no Truth and Reconciliation Commission, no national reckoning? Why, instead, was a “pact of forgetting” forged in Spain? And what were the consequences of that pact, 40 years into democracy, for the still-living victims of Franco’s dictatorship?
When we began filming the process of the “Argentine lawsuit” in 2012, which challenged this status quo, few thought that it would amount to much. But as we filmed those early meetings, we could see that the lawsuit was stirring up something vital, transforming victims and survivors into organizers and plaintiffs and bringing out dozens, and then hundreds, of testimonies from all over Spain. As the number of testimonies snowballed, the case was building into a persuasive argument about crimes against humanity that demanded international justice.
We thus discovered that “The Silence of Others” was going to be a story about possibilities, about trying to breach a wall, and that, rather than focusing on what had happened in the past, it would be all about what would happen in the future. We also saw that the film would embody great passion and urgency because, for many of the plaintiffs, this case would offer the last opportunity in their lifetimes to be heard.

Even so, as we set out filming those early meetings, we could scarcely have imagined that we would follow this story for six years and film over 450 hours of footage.

Perspective & Process
The stories that we were uncovering touched each of us deeply: Almudena is a Spaniard whose parents were raised under Franco, and who grew up in Spain during the transition from dictatorship to democracy. Robert is an American who has been involved with human rights issues since he was 19, and the fight against Fascism during the Spanish Civil War had always been close to his heart.
We make films slowly, with a very small team, over a long period of time. We shoot as a two-person crew, with Almudena filming and Robert doing sound. While we are interested in issues, we are fascinated by people and their journeys. We patiently film over a period of years, watching things evolve, following many storylines and seeing where they will lead.
This process leads to a lot of material – in the end we shot over 450 hours – but it also immerses us in the story on a day-to-day level, and sometimes there is no replacement for just “being there.” For example, we remember one week where we spent nearly every night till 2am at lawyer Carlos Slepoy’s house, filming a series of meetings for a story line that never panned out. But, by coincidence, on one of the nights that we were filming, they received the call that Judge Servini had ordered 20 new arrest warrants, which became a very important scene in the film.
Our edit process, too, is long, slow and patient. We try to stay open to discovery, and we spent 14 months in the edit room with The Silence of Others, slowly writing, editing and building the film, with wonderful collaborators Kim Roberts and Ricardo Acosta.

Aesthetics
“The Silence of Others” is lyrical and reflective at times and suspenseful at others. The film is structured around the Argentine lawsuit and we follow the case as it unfolds over six years in front of our camera, capturing breaking developments and emotions as they happen.
With the lawsuit as backbone, we delicately interweave plaintiff testimonies, which are framed against a black background, to convey the testimony that they hope to give to the judge. We also make extensive use of archival materials, which help us enter each plaintiff’s memories, and viscerally bear witness to the past. In addition, we use sparse voiceover narration (by Director Almudena Carracedo) to provide space for essential context and reflection.
The original music by Leonardo Heiblum and Jacobo Lieberman, and the sound design by Steve Miller, are also important cinematic elements, and we have aspired to create a powerful and affecting soundscape.
We look to films like Patricio Guzmán’s “Nostalgia For The Light” and Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Look Of Silence” as deep and poetic models for exploring the shadows that past crimes cast upon the present. Like these films, we hope that The Silence of Others delves sensitively and artfully into the past, posing questions rather than answering them.

Point-of-view
We recognize that the issues explored in “The Silence of Others” can be sources of division in Spain to this day. In families. Among friends. Across sectors of society. Yet we feel strongly that the stories of the victims and survivors in The Silence of Others transcend the political, and should be seen in the frame of human rights.
As Judge María Servini says near the end of the film, “If the judges in Spain could hear what I have heard, they would open these cases here, too”. Likewise, we hope that when people hear the stories that we have heard over the seven years of making The Silence of Others, and see the fear and the pain that we have seen, they too will view this less as a political issue, and more as a human rights – or just a human – issue.

Biography of the Director/s
Short Biography - Director Almudena Carracedo

Born in Madrid, Spain, Almudena developed her professional career in the US, where she directed and produced her debut film, the Emmy-winning feature documentary "Made in L.A." In 2012, Almudena returned to her native Spain to begin work on "The Silence of Others", in collaboration with Robert Bahar. After 7 years of work, The Silence of Others premiered at the 2018 Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), where it won both the Audience Award (Panorama) and the Peace Film Prize. Following Berlin, "The Silence of Others" won the Grand Jury Award at Sheffield Doc/Fest, was a Top 10 Audience Favorite at Hot Docs, and it is currently screening at festivals around the world.

Previously, her short documentary "Welcome, A Docu-Journey of Impressions", won Silverdocs' Sterling Prize. Almudena 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.

Short Biography- Director Robert Bahar

Robert is the Emmy-winning producer/writer of the feature documentary Made in L.A., and spearheaded the three-year impact campaign that brought the film to audiences around the world. In 2012 Robert relocated to Spain to direct and produce "The Silence of Others", in collaboration with Almudena Carracedo. After 7 years of work, "The Silence of Others" premiered at the 2018 Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), where it won both the Audience Award (Panorama) and the Peace Film Prize. Following Berlin, The Silence of Others won the Grand Jury Award at Sheffield Doc/Fest and was a Top 10 Audience Favorite at Hot Docs. It is currently nominated for the European Parliament's Lux Film Prize and is screening at festivals around the world. Originally from Philadelphia, Robert previously produced and directed the documentary "Laid to Waste", produced the short documentary "Meet Joe Gay", and line produced several independent films. He is a Creative Capital Fellow, a Sundance Documentary Fellow, and holds an MFA from USC’s School of Cinema-Television.

Filmography of the Director/s
Almudena Carracedo

The Silence of Others (96min, 2018) (Producer / Director / Writer / Cinematographer / Co- Editor)

Made in L.A. (70min, 2007) (Producer / Director / Writer / Cinematographer / Editor)
Welcome, a Docu-Journey of Impressions (13min, 2003) (Producer / Director / Writer / Cinematographer / Editor)

Robert Bahar
The Silence of Others (96min, 2018) (Producer / Director / Writer / Location Sound)
Made in L.A. (70min, 2007) (Producer / Writer)
Meet Joe Gay (26 min, 1999) (Producer)

Laid to Waste (52min, 1996) (Producer / Director)

Awards Won
Panorama Documentary Audience Award (Berlinale)
Peace Film Prize (Berlinale)
Grand Jury Award (Sheffield Doc/Fest)
Top 10 Audience Favorite (Hotdocs - Canadian International Documentary Festival)
Special Mention of the Jury, Creative Documentary (Geneva International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights)

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