''Captive'' ( es, Cautiva) is a 2003 Argentinian film that concerns itself with what happened to the children of the people killed after the 1970s military coup. The film states it was made with the support of Argentine National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts. ''Captive'' was an award winner at the 2003 San Sebastian Film Festival.

Plot

Cristina Quadri is the model of a perfect student. Smart and affluent, her life is in perfect order until, one day, she is called from her class and made to appear in front of a judge. The judge informs her that her biological parents disappeared in the 1970s. Cristina is forced to live with her grandmother, Elisa Dominich has spent the past 16 years attempting to locate Cristina, whose birth name was Sofia. Although at first she is hurt, bitter, and confused, Cristina/Sofia eventually grows to care for Elisa and begins to research the fate of her parents, and how much her adoptive parents knew of the truth.

Context

Cautiva is a reflection on both the legacy of the "

Dirty War The Dirty War ( es, Guerra sucia) is the name used by the military junta or civic-military dictatorship of Argentina ( es, dictadura cívico-militar de Argentina, links=no) for the period of state terrorism in Argentina from 1974 to 1983 as ...

", and the legacy of citizens who were disappeared by the government during the 1970s and 1980s. Once Argentina's current democracy was established, research began on the atrocities committed from 1976-1983 under the military government. It was discovered that children born to disappeared parents while they were in captivity had been routinely adopted by militarily connected families. There were efforts to reconnect these children with their biological relatives. Often this meant any living grandparents or other more removed relatives, as the parents were still disappeared. This proved difficult, which the film illustrates, as Argentina's judicial system had to navigate the most sensitive way to approach a legal situation so entangled with family life and deeply rooted emotions.

Cast

* Bárbara Lombardo as Cristina Quadri / Sofía Lombardi * Susana Campos as Elisa Dominich *

Hugo Arana Hugo Arana (23 July 1943 – 11 October 2020) was an Argentine film, television, and theatre actor. Life Arana was born on 23 July 1943. He grew up in Monte Grande where his parents were farmers and moved with his family to Lomas de Zamora and t ...

as Juez Barrenechea * Osvaldo Santoro as Pablo Quadri * Noemí Frenkel as Licenciada Bernstein * Lidia Catalano as Martha * Mercedes Funes as Angélica * Silvia Baylé as Adela de Quadri * Luis Gianneo as Doctor Gómez

Reception

Critical response

Film critic A. O. Scott especially lauded the young actor in the film, writing, "We first meet Cristina Quadri, the heroine of Gastón Biraben’s ''Captive'', at her 15th birthday party, in 1994. She appears to be a perfectly ordinary, if exceptionally lovely, Buenos Aires teenager. Cristina lives with her doting upper-middle-class family (her father, now retired, was an officer in the national police force) and attends a starchy Catholic girls’ school, where she daydreams through her lessons and sneaks cigarettes with her best friend. But Bárbara Lombardo, the extraordinary young actress who plays Cristina, has the kind of soft, melancholy features that seem to hold reservoirs of emotion, as if she were haunted by the memory — or perhaps the premonition — of an unbearable hurt."Scott, A.O.
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', film review, "Observe With Caution: She’s Not the Girl She Appears to Be (Not Even to Herself)", November 10, 2006. Accessed: June 22, 2013.

Awards

Wins

Havana Film Festival The Havana Film Festival is a Cuban festival that focuses on the promotion of Latin American filmmakers. It is also known in Spanish as ''Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano de La Habana,'' and in English as International Festiva ...

: OCIC Award - Special Mention - Gaston Biraben; 2003. *

San Sebastián International Film Festival The San Sebastián International Film Festival ( SSIFF; es, Festival Internacional de San Sebastián, eu, Donostia Zinemaldia) is an annual FIAPF A category film festival held in the Spanish city of Donostia-San Sebastián in September, in ...

: Horizons Award - Gaston Biraben; 2003. * Toulouse Latin America Film Festival:

FIPRESCI Prize The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI, short for Fédération Internationale de la PRESse CInématographique) is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world fo ...

- Gaston Biraben; 2004. *

Argentinean Film Critics Association Awards The Argentine Film Critics Association ( es, Asociación de Cronistas Cinematográficos de la Argentina) is an organization of Argentine-based journalists and correspondents. The association presents the ''Silver Condor Awards'' (''Premios Cóndor ...

: Silver Condor - Best Music, José Luis Castiñeira de Dios; Best Supporting Actor, Hugo Arana; 2006.

References

External links

* *
''Cautiva''
at the

cinenacional.com Cinenacional.com is a web portal and World Wide Web, web-based database about Cinema of Argentina, Argentine cinema. It is the most comprehensive site for information about the Argentine film industry, with a vast array of information on films, tel ...

* {{in lang, es 2003 films 2000s political drama films Dirty War films Films about Latin American military dictatorships Enforced disappearance Argentine independent films Argentine drama films 2000s Spanish-language films Films about adoption 2003 drama films 2000s Argentine films