The revolutionary “Norita” shares her story from housewife to activist.
By Amberlyn Negron
NORITA stood out from the other women’s stories that premiered at this year’s Austin Film Festival. Following the famous Nora Cortiñas, Co-Founder of Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Directors, Jayson McNamara and Andrea Carbonatto Tortoneses, do an incredible job at sharing Norita’s life as a mother and wife to an activist.”
During the late 1970s to early 80s, the youth in Argentina progressively pushed against the ruling military dictatorship During the “Dirty War,” several government protesters were kidnapped by the military and tortured or killed with no trace left behind. An estimated 30,000 individuals vanished and only a small portion returned home to their families.
Concerned and angry about being ignored and dismissed by the Argentine government when wanting to know the livelihood of their children, mothers formed Las Madres De Plaza de Mayo to apply pressure on the government. Every day the mothers walked the plaza. Norita became one of these women after her son went missing.
“The thing that is tricky is how to communicate all of this pain and trauma, but also the joy,” said Producer, Sarah Schoellkopf. “Nora was one of the most joyful people you could ever know in your life.”
As seen in the documentary, Norita is such a cheerful woman, it’s hard to not fall in love with her. For someone who has come head to head with so much adversity, it’s hard to see it from the smile that graces her face.
“There’s this one [(scene]) that I still think about, where she’s just talking about her plants,” Schoellkopf said. “But she has this line, like you have to have perseverance. You have to have patience, and you have to have hope…That is her in a nutshell.”
Producer Melissa Daniels said bringing together the film shots, the animations and the music was a great delight to her and her team.
“We have all these visual elements of the story of the edit of the music of the animation, all coming together in one piece,” Daniels said. “It’s like such a celebration of a variety of different forms that we get to present to everybody, and none of that would be possible without the talents of so many people on this team.”
Woven throughout the narrative is the contrast between the past and the present. Abortion makes a large appearance during the documentary, especially the fight for access to the procedure in Latin America. Daniels said it was such a hot topic issue in the United States, that the team felt it was important to include it in the final edit.
“(Argentina) is such a conservative country. It is a very Catholic country, and so to have one of the most Catholic countries in all of, like Latin America, be able to secure these rights that a quote, unquote, progressive country like the U.S. Has not been able to secure for their citizens,” Daniels said. “It’s a really wonderful demonstration of how this story is not just relative to Latin America.”
NORITA was beautifully stitched together and doesn’t shy away from the harsh truths of the “Dirty War” or women’s struggles. Where truth is shown; liberation can be felt for the victims lost. NORITA is a must see film.