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Cordoba filmmaker Daniel Tortosa explains why his documentary, "Los Maricones"—which can be viewed in full here— deals with the repression of gays and trans people during the last dictatorship, but it doesn't end there. Released in 2016, the testimonies recover marginalized voices and warn of the return of punitivism and police harassment of dissident sexual identities. By Alexis Oliva, from Cordoba. Photos: courtesy of Los Maricones.

In March 2009, as the organizational meetings for what would be the first Gay Pride March in Córdoba were beginning, a young man approached Daniel Tortosa and asked, "Hey, what's this urban myth about the arrest of homosexuals?" "I thought, 'This is a mistake of my generation, because if we don't talk about what happened to us, it will remain an urban myth,'" the audiovisual producer and professor at the Film School of the Faculty of Arts of the National University of Córdoba Presentes

Cordoba's double standards

Since its premiere on May 29, 2016—the anniversary of the Cordobazo in 1969— Los Maricones has participated in the international film festivals Asterisco (Buenos Aires), Llamale H (Montevideo, Uruguay), Luces, Cámara, Acción! (La Paz, Bolivia), the Invicines Social Film Festival (Córdoba), and the DOCA Documentary Film Showcase (Buenos Aires). It received a Special Mention at the Asterisco Festival and the Best Documentary Short Film award at the 9th Roberto Di Chiara International Short Film Competition (Florencio Varela, Buenos Aires, 2017).

-What gave birth to this film?

-My personal experience and my path to activism. It was about bringing this issue to light and not letting it be forgotten: the police arrests of homosexuals from the 1930s to 2000. There was an edict, the 2nd H, that allowed homosexuals to be detained for up to 30 days if they were found in public offering sexual services, or with a minor, or in a meeting, etc. This opened the door for the police to adopt an extortionate and blackmailing approach toward homosexuals.

-What did you experience during your detention?

"Where we were, you could hear people being tortured. There was a completely disfigured man in the cell. They didn't torture me, but they kept me awake for almost the two days I was there. It was a very tough situation, in the cell, in the yard... They'd take you out, they'd question you, they'd put you back in, they'd ask you again, where the parties were, who you knew... It was a completely repetitive situation."

-From 1930 to 2000, there were dictatorships and democracies. How did that persecution vary?

-It didn't change; it was always there. According to testimonies, the worst impact on the trans community was after the return to democracy, in the 1980s and 1990s. My idea is that it was due to the emergence of AIDS, which sparked fear and increased discrimination and stigma.

-Was the persecution and cruelty against gays and trans people tolerated by Córdoba society?

-Yes, I grew up with that, and it was the norm. It was naturalized. If you were a visible faggot and wanted to go to meetings and roam the streets, the police were there to put you in jail. It was part of the game. If not, you had to live locked up in your house. Whoever went out, sooner or later ended up in jail. And in Córdoba, there's a double life, double standards, and double talk. Last night we partied hard, and this morning we're going to Mass, and if you see me on the street, don't say hello. It's the weight of the Church. In Buenos Aires, that wasn't as noticeable. I suppose it was the same, but it wasn't as noticeable. From the pedestrian zone to jail.

Tortosa went to the Provincial Archive of Memory (APM) to offer his testimony about his arrest in 1980. At that time, the Information Department (D2) of the Córdoba Provincial Police operated there, during the height of the civil-military dictatorship. He was interviewed there by Natalia Magrin.

In the first scene of Los Maricones, Natalia walks with him along San Martín Street, towards the Historic Town Hall of Córdoba.

"What was it, Dani, that made you take this step to do this now?" she asks. "Everything that's happening. I'm interested in making it known; generations need to know." (…) We were with two other friends, standing around, messing around and talking. Two guys with dark glasses, suits, and jackets appear and approach us. "What are you doing?" They show us the gun. "What were you doing here?"

—We were wandering around, we were on the east side. This was the gay hangout. Here you met, you saw each other, you got up, you liked each other, you winked at each other, you went for a coffee. Daniel and Natalia walked through the arcade of the Cabildo and turned down Pasaje Santa Catalina toward the former D2.

He continues his story: “And these cops here greet each other. “Ah ha ha. Look, they bring these faggots here.” 

Hell and the Bells

In February 1974, the "Navarrazo"—a police coup led by Antonio Domingo Navarro—overthrew the democratic government of Ricardo Obregón Cano in Córdoba. From then on, the D2 was the epicenter of espionage, persecution, and repression of all forms of militancy, with its Investigations Brigade divided into the "Street," "Factory," and "Faculty" groups.

After the coup of March 24, 1976, it became a clandestine detention center. It operated under the direction of the Third Army Corps and the recently deceased former General Luciano Benjamín Menéndez. It was the first stop in the Córdoba repressive regime.

[READ MORE: Nobody knows what a body can do: The Countess's story]

The dark, sordid, and architecturally intricate place accentuated the oppressive climate and the violence inflicted on prisoners who were kept incommunicado, bound, hooded, and subjected to hunger, thirst, cold, and sleep deprivation. Crimes against humanity were committed there that would only be prosecuted ten years into the 21st century: illegal raids and arrests; torture involving brutal beatings, electric cattle prods, mojarritas , and waterboarding ; reduction to servitude; and treacherous homicides. Sexual assaults, especially of women but also of men, were routine in this hell, punctuated by the bells of the neighboring Cathedral.

Those bells, which those who passed through there will never forget, continue to ring, and Tortosa didn't want to leave them out of his film's soundtrack. "How naive... I thought: If I scream, the priests will hear me and come to rescue me, because they're good," he recalls in that first scene.

[LGBT memories persecuted and silenced under the dictatorship]

Marginalized from Memory
At the time of filming, psychologist Natalia Magrin was working in the Oral and Audiovisual History department of the APM, where the thematic collection Sexual Diversity and State Terrorism .
“ Why were the arrests, abuses, and torture in police stations and prisons during state terrorism against men, women, transsexuals, transvestites, and sex workers, based on the signifier 'homosexual,' not part of public denunciations of the material and symbolic violence of the repressive power ? Why were they not included in the repertoire of memories of the human rights movement? What production conditions were there for silence and indifference?” were some of the questions that guided her research.

In this context, Magrin highlights that “meeting Daniel Tortosa and those who are part of Los Maricones was an experience of encountering testimonies, life stories, narratives that have historically been left out of memoir works. That experience allowed us to explore some of these questions, to generate meaning about the systematic violence against homosexuals, transvestites, lesbians, transsexuals, and transgender people during state terrorism and its continuation in democracy. Los Maricones is one of the first productions about the violence of the repressive forces of the state against LGBT individuals .”

The fulfilled prophecy

The location chosen for the documentary interviews is the space in front of the former D2 prison cells, with their peeling metal doors painted a military green. There, the story unfolds firsthand: raids, beatings, rapes, and a wide range of abuse, mockery, and humiliation. And murders, such as that of transvestite Vanessa Lorena Ledesma, arrested on February 11, 2000, and killed in prison five days later.

“At the time of Vanessa's tragedy, I thought: 'I don't have to go through this too,'” says Vanessa Piedrabuena. “The thought crossed my mind: ' I'll be next, and I can't allow it.' ” So she dared to photograph her friend's body with “the bruises, the marks, everything she had… the caved-in skull,” evidence that supported her complaint to Amnesty International, accompanied by the Argentine Homosexual Community (CHA) .

[“The LGBTI struggle is also part of Memory, Truth and Justice”]

“ I'm very respectful of our worn-out heels, of my elders, our trans women. We have disappeared women too. Just because there's no record of their existence doesn't mean their blood isn't crying out for justice, because if for a student there was no way to trace their whereabouts, imagine for a trans girl, we were the dregs of society ,” reflects Agostina Quiroga.

There's also a premonition, expressed in 2013 when the interviews were filmed. Eugenio Cesano, a CHA activist and president of the Association Against Homosexual Discrimination (Acodho) in the 1990s, warns: "Police pressure, now quite questionable, will possibly decrease a bit. But it's a matter of time; it will rise again and it will be the same again. Because it's an institution, a structure that is prepared to do this, and this is how it lives, this is how it feeds. And society seems to be demanding this."

“And it ended up happening,” Cesano admits today, with a bitter smile. “There was a global right-wing wave brewing, and we could see it coming. It's something that's starting again. The fight for human rights is ongoing, and we must always be vigilant. Those in power are pissed off that certain people they consider inferior have rights. This has gotten worse. The police have more and more power and are killing. The oligarchy kills for pleasure. That's why this film is an aide-mémoire and an inexhaustible source of experience.”

For Magrín, Los Maricones "is, in this present, an act of resistance. A shaking of the margins, an aesthetic, political, and narrative operation that lifts the veil, exposes the discursive performativity and liminal spaces of memories, while questioning us about the continuities of such biopolitical mechanisms and devices of control and violence . It is an act, an ethical and political treatment of our memories and their dignity as a compass for thinking about and contesting the future."

About the end of the film, Nadiha Molina says: “I became too empowered with information, and that was a huge obstacle for them to stop using the boundless violence they had against the community.”
“Does education transform?” the director asks.
“Yes, absolutely.”

To watch the full movie : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0kl1JCnDGY&feature=youtu.be

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgvIsfPs82Y&sns=fb

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Los-Maricones-227760710926717/

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