If it Please the Court

Synopsis

The theatre as a courtroom, the courtroom as a theatre. Alejo Moguillansky’s film draws loosely on Raúl Quirós Molina’s El pan y la sal (The Bread and the Salt), a 2015 verbatim theatre piece compiled from the testimonies provided during the 2012 trial of Judge Baltasar Garzon, for investigating the forced disappearances of the Spanish Civil War and the Franco regime. Juxtaposing the testimonies of the relatives of those who lost loved ones with references to Argentina’s and Chile’s recent dictatorships, this film explores issues around international law and forced disappearance - tracing a line between Francisco Franco, Augusto Pinochet and Jorge Videla’s Military Junta: Garzón has investigated Argentine torturers and criminal perpetrators and had Pinochet arrested in London in 1998 for crimes against humanity.