AllMovie

During the 1970's, under the rule of president Luis Echeverría, close to a thousand Mexican citizens "disappeared" as leftist activists and ordinary people rose up to decry the corruption of Echeverría's regime, as well as his role in the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre, in which more than 200 student protesters were killed by police. Aleida Gallangos was the daughter of parents who vanished during the Echeverría years, but for most of her life she never knew it -- adopted by another family when she was young, Gallangos grew up not knowing the truth about her birth parents, and she had no idea that she also had a brother. In 2003, Gallangos learned that she was adopted and began research into the life of her biological parents; in time, she discovered her sibling as well as some unpleasant truths about her nation during a time of turmoil. Filmmaker Christiane Burkhard examines the true story of Aleida Gallangos and her family in the documentary Trazando Aleida (aka Tracing Aleida), a film which balances the tragedies of Mexico's past with the bittersweet joy of a reunited family. Trazando Aleida was an official selection at the 2008 Montreal World Film Festival.