`Pencils' film retells terror of Argentina's `disappeared'

NEW YORK In 1976, a group of Argentine teenagers demonstratingfor student bus fares was kidnapped by security forces in theprovince of Buenos Aires.

It was one of the first roundups in what was to be known as the"dirty war" against the left, a state-sanctioned reign of terror inwhich thousands of civilians were tortured and killed under militaryrule.

Only one of those detained students, Pablo Diaz, survived. Hehas become the technical adviser on "The Night of the Pencils," afilm based on his experiences in a clandestine prison outside BuenosAires.

No one knows precisely what befell the other six members of thegroup. All are listed among Argentina's "disappeared."

"The Night of the Pencils" was shot in the schoolrooms andhouses where the events occurred, and it has become a hit inArgentina, which returned to democracy in late 1983.

The film was recently screened at the New Directors/New FilmsFestival here and will be shown at the Cannes (France) Film Festivalin May. Plans are being made for distribution throughout the UnitedStates and Europe.

The audience here was stunned by harrowing re-creations oftorture, mock execution and rape by Argentine security forces.

In an unrelentingly violent scene, a boy is tortured with anelectric prod while a radio plays loud tango music.

Diaz, who endured that experience, was hired by the filmmakersto oversee the production and advise on its authenticity.

"Pablo could tell me exactly what life was like inside thathell," director Hector Olivera said. "He now takes care of thechildren of the disappeared, and is active in human rights causes inBuenos Aires." All the actors, including Alejo Garcia Pintos, whoportrays Pablo, are young drama students and this is their firstmovie.

The film was shot in the homes of the missing youths, and theactors wore the school uniforms of the "disappeared," provided bytheir parents.

"It was a way to keep their children's memory alive," saidOlivera, 55. "Because the terrible thing is that the families had noaccess to the bodies of their loved ones. Most bodies were burned,dumped in common graves or thrown in the rivers."

It was the Argentine security forces that coined the phrase "TheNight of the Pencils" to refer to the abduction of students.

A similar police action in which lawyers and professors weretaken for a "one-way ride" was known as "The Night of the Neckties,"said Olivera, who has covered the walls of his New York apartmentwith photographs of himself with Argentina's democratically electedpresident, Raul Alfonsin.

The director chose to remain in Argentina during military rule.

"I was one of the ones who stayed," he said. "People would oftenask us about the conditions in the country. And we'd say: `There areno concentration camps in this country.'

"It was inconceivable to us," Olivera explains. "We were adecent society. And of course, the reality is that there was noAuschwitz and no Buchenwald, though we did have over 60 clandestineprisons where hundreds were kept secretly and tortured. Eventually,most of the detainees were put to death."

When Alfonsin took office, he named a commission led by authorErnesto Sabato to look into charges of widespread human rightsabuses, torture and secret prisons. The commission confirmed that atleast 9,000 people disappeared.