A Promise to the Dead

A Promise to the Dead: Review of the Opening Night Selection of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival

A Promise to the Dead: On September 11, 1973, Chile’s military attacked its government. As the coup took hold, the democratically elected president Salvador Allende called government members to the presidential palace to stand against their attackers, facing certain death. Ariel Dorfman was Allende’s cultural advisor, and should have been called too; he later discovered his name had been struck from the list so he could live to tell what happened that day. Three decades later, Dorfman is an internationally respected writer and human rights activist, winner of the Sir Laurence Olivier Award for the play “Death and the Maiden.” Filmmaker Peter Raymont travels to Chile with Dorfman in late 2006, at the time when Augusto Pinochet, Allende’s overthrower and Dorfman’s long-time nemesis, is dying. Raymont follows Dorfman through emotional reunions with his friends and fellow resistors, to personal landmarks that are powerful both emotionally and historically. During the journey they explore exile, memory and the search for justice.

Read our review of the film here

Posted on 06/20/08 by: FCFeatures 06:12 PM


-->