Abstract

Chilean filmmaker Patricio Lanfranco was nominated for an Emmy for his documentary ‘The Judge and the General’, which illustrates Judge Juan Guzman’s attempts to bring General Augusto Pinochet to justice for human rights crimes committed during the general’s brutal 17-year dictatorship in Chile.

Lanfranco is the first Chilean ever to be nominated for an Emmy, and his moving film has won numerous other prizes as well as praise from critics around the world.

The evening will begin with a showing of the documentary followed by a Q&A session with Patricio Lanfranco, chaired by Paul Mylrea, Wolfson fellow and formerly Reuters bureau chief in Chile.

The documentary follows Judge Guzman as he investigated the first criminal cases against former dictator Pinochet in 1998. Chilean judges have the role of investigator as well as prosecutor. Under Pinochet there were more than 3,200 murders and more than 28,000 tortured between 1973 and 1990, according to the findings of two state-sponsored truth commissions.

Guzman, a staunch conservative who supported Pinochet’s 1973 military coup to oust democratically elected president Salvador Allende, was given the case by the accident of being the next on the list when it was assigned. The film follows his six year investigation into the crimes – and his realisation of the scale of abuses – which Guzman in the film describes as his descent into “the abyss.”

“One of the hopes I had for the film was to encourage the same kind of transformation in Chilean society,” said Lanfranco, who will talk about his experience of making the film, his unique access and the implications for Chile today.

Drinks and canapés will be served after the lecture.

Admission free, but please tell us you’re coming by registering