Figli - Hijos

A woman gives birth, as two men wait outside to take her child from her. The woman has twins, the midwife manages to hide the baby girl in a bag. 
In Milan twenty years later, Javier, the male twin, lives totally unaware of past events. Pampered by his comfortable life as part of a wealthy family, he lives a normal life without a care in the world. One day his sister Rosa arrives in Italy. After desperately searching for him all her life, she finally tracked him down via e-mail and now wants to tell him the truth. Javier refuses to believe her, yet the seed of doubt tortures him and his life will never be the same again. The brother and sister set off on a trip to Barcelona, a journey that for Javier becomes an interior journey towards the painful discovery of the truth.
The Italo-Argentinian director Marco Bechis, following "Garage Olimpo", returns once again to the terrible story of Argentina's "desaparecidos" or "disappeared" of the Seventies. And while in "Garage Olimpo" the drama was visible in a patent, crude manner, with the description of the concentration camps and the torture suffered by prisoners, in "Hijos" the tragedy is all interiorized. The story meanders tortuously through the folds of a soul recoiling from an unbearable truth. Javier, distraught at the thought of having lived another life, compared to that which he had been destined to live, fights against the idea that his parents, or at least the people he always believed were his parents, are in reality murderers. The drama of these children, torn from the arms of their mothers, who subsequently faced torture and death, is barely touched upon in the film, yet the emotional issue of unacceptable alienation, pursued by a government with the tacit complicity of the people, strikes at the viewer's heart. Bechis chooses a different cinematographic style compared to previous works, built on words never spoken, glances and allusions packed with emotions, that bounce off one character after another, laying bear the psychological make-up of the characters in order to allow each of them to participate in the drama shared by many. Only the documentary-style ending, taken from footage of an actual demonstration organized by the H.I.J.O.S. association from which the film takes its name, brings us back to present-day reality and the drama currently lived by the children of the desaparecidos.

Figli - Hijos

A woman gives birth, as two men wait outside to take her child from her. The woman has twins, the midwife manages to hide the baby girl in a bag. 
In Milan twenty years later, Javier, the male twin, lives totally unaware of past events. Pampered by his comfortable life as part of a wealthy family, he lives a normal life without a care in the world. One day his sister Rosa arrives in Italy. After desperately searching for him all her life, she finally tracked him down via e-mail and now wants to tell him the truth. Javier refuses to believe her, yet the seed of doubt tortures him and his life will never be the same again. The brother and sister set off on a trip to Barcelona, a journey that for Javier becomes an interior journey towards the painful discovery of the truth.
The Italo-Argentinian director Marco Bechis, following "Garage Olimpo", returns once again to the terrible story of Argentina's "desaparecidos" or "disappeared" of the Seventies. And while in "Garage Olimpo" the drama was visible in a patent, crude manner, with the description of the concentration camps and the torture suffered by prisoners, in "Hijos" the tragedy is all interiorized. The story meanders tortuously through the folds of a soul recoiling from an unbearable truth. Javier, distraught at the thought of having lived another life, compared to that which he had been destined to live, fights against the idea that his parents, or at least the people he always believed were his parents, are in reality murderers. The drama of these children, torn from the arms of their mothers, who subsequently faced torture and death, is barely touched upon in the film, yet the emotional issue of unacceptable alienation, pursued by a government with the tacit complicity of the people, strikes at the viewer's heart. Bechis chooses a different cinematographic style compared to previous works, built on words never spoken, glances and allusions packed with emotions, that bounce off one character after another, laying bear the psychological make-up of the characters in order to allow each of them to participate in the drama shared by many. Only the documentary-style ending, taken from footage of an actual demonstration organized by the H.I.J.O.S. association from which the film takes its name, brings us back to present-day reality and the drama currently lived by the children of the desaparecidos.