The Eyes of the Birds
The Uruguayan prison perversely named La Libertad is the setting for a powerful drama based on filmmaker Gabriel Auer's lengthy investigation of that country's human rights situation. A “model prison” where living conditions are apparently excellent, La Libertad is suspiciously sealed off from the rest of the world and notorious for its treatment of Uruguay's many political prisoners. Auer's fictionalized account follows a team of Red Cross workers who gain access to the prison and are allowed to interview individual inmates in specially designed cells. Gradually, many separate stories begin to develop into one harrowing tale of degradation and torture. When, not surprisingly, the prison officials' promise of privacy is proved a lie--the rooms are bugged--the examiners are faced with the onus of reprisals against the prisoners if they act on any of the information they have gleaned. Their suddenly confused sense of purpose is set in strong contrast with the extreme courage and sophistication of these prisoners--the cream of a nation's intelligentsia-- whose daily lives are spelled out here in almost agonizing detail with the suggestion of violence being far more effective than its depiction. The Eyes of the Birds has been described as “a film to see for the quality of the acting alone. The action is all in the development of character among men faced with small but critical decisions...testify(ing) to the terms of lives confined but not choiceless” (Chicago Reader). Featured at Filmex, London, Sydney and Cannes film festivals.