Buenos Aires Herald to screen rights documentary at MALBA

To celebrate Human Rights Day, the Buenos Aires Herald is organizing a screening of the documentary Tiempos Circulares by Andrés Dunayevich at the MALBA on December 12 at 8 p.m.  Tiempos Circulares (78 minutes) is a touching documentary about four close friends from Córdoba — two pairs of siblings — who are united by the experience of losing their parents to the brutality of Argentina’s last dictatorship. As they participate in workshops, rights groups and trials, they find that their shared joy is the best form of revenge. In 1977, the parents of Ramiro and Martín Fresneda were taken by the dictatorship during a series of kidnappings that became known as the Night of the Ties. Both brothers went on to become human rights activists, and Martín became Argentina’s human rights secretary between 2012 and 2015. Carlos and Pablo de la Fuente are the sons of political activists Yolanda Estela Ripoll y Carlos Enrique de la Fuente. Carlos Enrique was on a bus with a young Carlos when he was seized by the dictatorship. Pablo became an actor and musician, participating in theater and comedy groups, while Carlos junior became a physical education teacher. Dunayevich and the four friends at the heart of the documentary will attend the screening and speak briefly after the film. A journalist and audiovisual creator, Dunayevich’s work expresses a profound passion for social change. He is the director of El Camboyano production company, and his previous works have included Tacones al Cielo (2023/24) and El Grito del Suquia (2022). A cycle of 15 films inspired by the Herald’s screening will explore the relationship between film and journalism. The series begins on Thursday, December 4, with Serge Leroy’s The Fourth Power (1985) and Alan J. Pakula’s The Parallax View (1974). The Buenos Aires Herald was one of the only newspapers to cover the last dictatorship’s human rights violations on a daily basis. Herald journalists, including the editor-in-chief Robert Cox and the journalist Andrew Graham-Yooll, had to seek exile after facing threats from the armed forces. Mothers and other relatives of those who had been forcibly disappeared would come to the Herald’s newsroom to ask for their stories to be published, in the hope of finding their loved ones. Journalists such as Uki Goñi held a steadfast commitment to reporting on what was happening. The defense of human rights and commitment to democratic values were, and will remain, a steadfast commitment at the Herald. Tickets for the screening can be purchased on the MALBA’s website at this link, under the “Cine” tab. The full program for the film and journalism series can be viewed here. It runs until Saturday, December 27.