Cautiva

Cautiva is an excellent film from Argentinian filmmaker Gaston Biraben. Although it is fiction it is based on fact.

Cristina (Barbara Lombardo) is a normal fifteen year old girl who goes to Catholic school and has a good relationship with her parents. One day she is ordered to leave school and see a judge. There is proof from blood tests that the couple that Cristina is living with are not her real parents. She is told that her real parents were among the many people who "disappeared" during Argentina's dictatorship of the 1970s. The judge orders Cristina to live with her grandmother Elisa (Susana Campos). She does not want to do this. And why would she. She loves her mother Adela (Silvia Bayle) and her father Pablo (Osvaldo Santoro). But what is the truth? What really happened? With the help of her friend Angelica (Mercedes Fures) Cristina finds out what really happened.

This film is very suspenseful I kept wondering what really happened. And I must say that I had one opinion early in the film and that changed later on (and I was right to change my mind).
The film has a lot to say about what happened in those dark days in the 70s. At the beginning of the film we see Henry Kissinger at the World Cup Game in 1978. Kissinger and the US government approved of this terrible dictatorship. At the end of the film we are shown the School of the Americas - this is a place that trains US approved dictators. The US government should be ashamed of itself for supporting these tyrants. In any case, do yourself a favor and rent Cautiva. It is a riveting film that will give you much food for thought.