Between 1973 and 1990, nearly 1,200 Chilean political dissidents who dared to speak out against tyrannical dictator Augusto Pinochet "disappeared" from their homes, to be tortured and executed by government-backed death squads. After Pinochet lost control of Chile's military in 1990, he fled the country, and in 1998, while visiting England to receive medical treatment, he was arrested by British authorities acting on a Spanish warrant for Pinochet's crimes against humanity. El Cas Pinochet is a documentary that presents the facts in the case against Pinochet, featuring interviews with researchers and activists who have documented the brutality of the dictator's reign of terror and who discuss the importance of bringing him to justice, as well as conversations with friends and relatives of some of the "disappeared" and the testimony of the handful of death squad victims who survived their ordeal. El Cas Pinochet was shown at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival as part of the International Critics Week series.
by Mark Deming
synopsis
