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ICTJ EventsJune 13, 2008 New York Premiere: A Promise to the Dead
The ICTJ and Cinema Tropical co-present the New York premiere of A Promise to the Dead at the 2008 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival. ICTJ President, Juan E. Méndez will introduce the film at its opening Friday June 13, 6:30 pm. A Promise to the Dead, Produced by Peter Raymont"... my first September 11th had been in 1973, when terror was also inflicted on the innocent, when death also rained down from the sky, sending me into exile, making me into the man I have now become..." -Ariel Dorfman On September 11, 1973, Chile's military attacked its government. As the coup took hold, the democratically elected president Salvador Allende called government members to the presidential palace to stand against their attackers, facing certain death. Ariel Dorfman was Allende's cultural advisor, and should have been called too; he later discovered his name had been struck from the list so he could live to tell what happened that day. Three decades later, Dorfman is an internationally respected writer and human rights activist, winner of the Sir Laurence Olivier Award for the play "Death and the Maiden." Filmmaker Peter Raymont travels to Chile with Dorfman in late 2006, at the time when Augusto Pinochet, Allende's overthrower and Dorfman's long-time nemesis, is dying. Raymont follows Dorfman through emotional reunions with his friends and fellow resistors, to personal landmarks that are powerful both emotionally and historically. During the journey they explore exile, memory and the search for justice. |
