Set in Buenos Aires at the start of Argentina’s infamous “Dirty War,” I Miss You is told from the POV of “Javi” (Fermin Volcoff), a high school kid sent to live with relatives in Mexico when his older brother “Adrian” (Martin Slipak) suddenly disappears.
Although the film doesn’t focus on the Jewish identity of its main characters, it opens with a Yiddish lullaby that sets the tone thru-out. Yes, it’s a documented fact that a disproportionate number of Argentina’s “Disappeared” were Jewish, although I’ve never seen a detailed analysis of this fact. The answer I get when I ask is that the was no anti-Semitism in Argentina per se, but numerous Jewish students gravitated to left-leaning social justice causes & thereby became targets after the right-wing military junta.
In the end, this family could be any family desperate to protect their vulnerable young son, all the while grieving for the son who’s already missing. But Javi’s dislocation while in exile is particularly poignant given that all of this occured just one generation after the Holocaust.
Photo courtesy of SFJFF website.
Click HERE to read more about director Fabian Hofman.
Click HERE to read more about screenwriter Diana Cardoza.
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