Sunday, February 12, 2012

Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo


            The director of “Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo and the Search for Identity”, spoke to students at the University of Oklahoma on February 7th after a screening of the film.
 Students were given the opportunity to speak with Charlie Tuggle, who happens to be the director, writer, producer and close friend of the Dean of Gaylord, Joe Foote.
            The film focuses on “Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo”, an institution searching for missing grandchildren in Argentina. During the Dirty war an estimated 30,000 adults went missing and 500 of those were new mothers. Their children were given to military families and some have not been seen since.
The biological grandmothers of those children are known as Las Abuelas and have spent their lives searching for their missing grandchildren. The president of Las Abuelas, Estela de Carlotto, said the search for their grandchildren would never stop.
“The day there is not one single grandmother, this institution is in the hands of the grandchildren.”
Tuggle spent 10 weeks total in Argentina working on the film with his wife and two daughters. He hopes the film will tell the story of the struggle with identity that the people of Argentina have had to face. 
Tuggle emphasized how important it was to the Abuelas and their grandchildren to find their identities.  “To have a knowledge of need for human right is one thing, to have a passion for it is something else.”  

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