Adriana’s Pact: A journey towards the elaboration of trauma

Abstract

Accused of committing human rights violations during the Chilean military dictatorship (1973-1990), Adriana Rivas González, Aunt Chani, is one of the protagonists of Lissette Orozco's documentary, The Adriana Pact (2017). The niece of the ex-DINA agent, the Chilean filmmaker seeks evidence about her aunt's work. Gradually, the evidence points to Rivas' guilt and the exposure of a family secret. During the making of the film, Lissette's doubt goes beyond the boundaries of the family and reaches the public space. In this sense, this article intends to explore three questions: 1) the process of elaborating the trauma of the Chilean military dictatorship, through cinematographic production; 2) the relationship between the family secret (private space) and the country's history (public space), in the composition of the documentary narrative; 3) the link between psychoanalytic and historical narratives, expressed in the film's aesthetic resources (metalanguage). Such questions caught our attention because they expose the distinctions between Brazilian and Chilean political cultures, leading us to reflect on how each deals with the elaboration of the traumatic past.