Silence Is a Falling Body

Filmmaker Agustina Comedi delves into her father Jaime's past. For many years he was in a relationship with a man, before he ended up marrying her mother. Homosexuality was still taboo in 1980s Argentina, so of course Jaime’s true nature was a family secret. Using the large collection of home videos her father made as a hobby, as well as interviews with his old friends, the film gives a beautiful impression of the time before Agustina's birth. It was a time characterized by political activism and awakening gay emancipation, but also the arrival of AIDS. Long after Jaime's death, this discovery of his secret also places Agustina's own life in an entirely new light. The old VHS and 8mm footage of vacations and birthday parties creates a nostalgic, poetic atmosphere, in which the filmmaker compassionately attempts to understand how it must have been for her father to live a lie.