Venían a buscarme

Alvaro de la Barra went into exile without knowing. He was little more than a year old, unaware that his parents, Ana María Puga and Alejandro de la Barra, both activists in the MIR Revolutionary Left Movement, had been assassinated near his kindergarten. Alvaro was spirited out of his fatherland under a false name and a forged birth certificate, growing up first in France and then Venezuela with his paternal uncle, filmmaker Pablo de la Barra – whose Queridos compañeros became a point of departure for Venían a buscarme.

In a style similar to the classic of Chilean exile cinema, Alvaro investigates the family archive, including video tapes which are played, discussed, paused, commented on and placed in historical perspective. Also, painful personal details are discovered, like Alvaro referring to Pablo as “dad”. But it’s not only Alvaro who comments – Pablo does so as well, making this a dialogue between two generations of exiles whose memories are, for obvious reasons, completely different. And so are their feelings regarding the past, one remembers and the one discovers their history through documents. Alvaro gets his real name back – but will he ever get a true home?

– Olaf Möller