“We have to inform them about what happened, because for people born after 1985, democracy feels normal — and it is not normal. Even in the U.S. and Brazil you have to fight for it,” says lawyer Luis Moreno Ocampo.
He’s talking about Santiago Mitre’s historical drama “Argentina, 1985,” which tells the true story of the legal team, led by chief prosecutor Julio Strassera (Ricardo Darín), that brought a military dictatorship to justice in a civilian court. It also, indirectly, establishes the origin story of Moreno Ocampo, the young deputy prosecutor who — after serving as Strassera’s courtroom partner — would later become the founding chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, The LA Times reports.
Undeterred by the military’s still considerable influence within their fragile new democracy, Strassera and Moreno Ocampo assembled a young legal team of unlikely heroes for their David-vs-Goliath battle, say the film’s producers. Under constant threat to themselves and their families, they raced against time to bring justice to the victims of the military junta.
“When I was first trying to promote this discussion, using the evidence I collected on the dictatorship, I wrote a book,” Moreno Campo adds. The book sold 10,000 copies in two months. But the movie was watched by 1 million people in Argentina in a single month! And now with Amazon, it can reach 10 million people across the world, and an Oscar would add another 20 million, and that is incredibly important. The point of this Oscar promotion is to promote democracy and values and respect.” RTWT
