Cautiva

CAUTIVA (in Spanish, with English subtitles) is written, produced and directed by Gastón Biraben in a dazzling debut. The film tells the story of Cristina, a typical Argentine teenager. Her life is suddenly uprooted when she is plucked out of class at the summons of a judge and the couple she knows as her parents are revealed to not be so. In the early 80s, her biological parents were "disappeared" for criticizing the military junta which had taken power in a coup. Surviving relatives of her biological parents, including Cristina’s grandmother, have spent years trying to track down the child. Ordered to now live with her biological family since her adoption – or appropriation, as it is chillingly called – had no legal basis, Cristina begins an investigation of her own in order to find out the truth. Played with an extraordinary gravity by the luminous Bárbara Lombardo in her film debut, the young girl meets others like herself and discovers the real-life horrors of Argentina’s relatively recent history and the nightmare that claimed tens of thousands of lives during the country’s “dirty war.”

A movie about the consequences of both political and psychological repression, CAUTIVA ultimately personifies the resilience of the human spirit.

CAUTIVA, Gastón Biraben’s internationally acclaimed Argentinean thriller, has been a hit on the international film festival circuit winning prizes at San Sebastian (Horizons Award for Best Latin American Film), Toulouse (FIPRESCI International Critics Prize) and Mar de la Plata (Best Film). CAUTIVA had its U.S. premiere at the prestigious New Directors/New Films series organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art. Most recently, CAUTIVA won two Silver Condor Awards (also known as the Argentine Oscars), the highest award given to cinema in that country.

"This powerful film in the New Directors/New Films Series about a girl's alienation is also an attempt to grapple with the horrors of Argentina's recent history." (A.O. Scott, New York Times)