After a military coup overthrew the democratically elected Socialist government of Chile on September 11, 1973, the capital’s National Stadium was the scene of the indiscriminate mass detentions of more than 12,000 suspected dissidents, and the brutal interrogations, torture, and executions they underwent. This film is the first in-depth investigation into the chilling events that took place in the stadium. With the testimony of more than 30 witnesses – former prisoners, priests, soldiers, journalists, nurses, and neighbors – this film provides a detailed and moving account of the experiences of those detained in the stadium. This courageous film unearths a part of Chilean history that is still taboo 30 years later. It opens with the 2000 presidential elections held in the stadium, where one of the vote counters who was also a detainee muses on the irony that in people were exercising their democratic rights “in the same place where people were detained and robbed of their freedom.”
