EJERCICIOS DE MEMORIA
(MEMORY EXERCISES)
2016. 70 mins. Paraguay.
In Spanish and Guarani with English subtitles.

MONDAY, AUGUST 19 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, AUGUST 29 – 7:30 PM

Part documentary, part testimonial, and part fiction, Paz Encina’s second feature EJERCICIOS DE MEMORIA focuses on one of former Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner’s most prominent opponents, through the memories of his children. Agustín Goiburú, a politician and doctor, planned a failed assassination attempt on Stroessner and later disappeared while in exile in Argentina in 1976. 35 years after his disappearance, his children are asked to return to a specific moment in their childhood but also a brutal period for the country and the majority of Latin America. Encina’s recent work is informed by the Archives of Terror, which collected documents chronicling the human rights violations by the Stroessner dictatorship’s secret police force and was used to prove the existence of Operation Condor. EJERJICOS DE MEMORIA recontextualizes the history of the nation by excavating the memory of those affected by it during its most oppressive time, forming a haunting poem that demands reflection.