Following Garage Olimpo (1999), director Marco Bechis returns once again to the dark era of Argentina’s military dictatorship. Mariano, a physician who went into exile in Italy thirty years ago, returns to Buenos Aires to testify at the trial of the former military officers who kidnapped him. Now, he must confront not only the perpetrators standing in court, but also the survivor’s guilt he has carried for decades and, above all, the ghosts that haunted his youth. Having experienced the dictatorship firsthand, the director relentlessly gazes upon the terror and trauma of those days Without explicitly showing torture scenes. Adriano Giannini’s compelling performance vividly embodies an inner wound that has never truly healed. Serving as both an intimate testimony and a confession of the era known as the “Dirty War” (Guerra Sucia), Back to Buenos Aires is one of the year’s most powerful masterpieces, delving deep into the indelible scars left by the dictatorship upon the human soul.
Marco Bechis, born in Santiago, Chile in 1955 to an Italian father and a mother of Swiss-French descent, is an Italian-Chilean film director and screenwriter. He grew up in São Paulo and Buenos Aires and lived through Argentina′s military dictatorship in 1977. After studying directing at the Albedo film school in Milan, he made his mark with his debut feature Alambrado (Barbed Wire, 1991), which was invited to international festivals including Locarno, Madrid, and Brussels. He has earned worldwide acclaim for politically engaged films drawing on the trauma of state violence he himself experienced, with notable works including Garage Olimpo (1999), invited to Cannes′ Un Certain Regard, and Birdwatchers (2008), invited to Venice. His latest film, Back to Buenos Aires, once again drawing on autobiographical material, was invited to the main competition at the 2026 Venice International Film Festival.
From Busan International Film Festival 2026, No. 31
