Daniela thought she was the daughter of Miguel Furci, an agent of the SIDE, the Argentinean Secret Service. But Daniela is, in fact, Mariana Zaffaronni. Her real parents were two Uruguayan activists, "disappeared" in Argentina during the military dictatorship of General Videla, which lasted from 1976 to 1983.
During Argentina's 'Dirty War', it was not uncommon for soldiers to illegally adopt the children of prisoners they tortured and killed. Often these children were just infants, and grew up unaware of their true identities. Mariana was one of them.
FOR THESE EYES documents her grandmothers' search for her. While their children's names appeared on the list of the disappeared, they never knew how they were killed, or what had happened to Mariana. For sixteen years they struggled to discover the truth, and Mariana's whereabouts. During this time Mariana became the "poster-child" for an international campaign to find, identify and return the children of the disappeared to their original families.
Mariana is seventeen years old by the time her grandmothers find her, and she learns the truth about her past. Complicated personal and legal conflicts ensue. Eventually Miguel Furci and his wife are charged with "illegal adoption," and jailed.
But Mariana is now practically an adult, and the judge leaves it up to her to decide which family she wants to claim, as her own.
The search for many of Uruguay's and Argentina's disappeared (and their children) continues to this day. FOR THESE EYES tells the story of one young women who was actually found, of her two families, their histories and their competing claims on her, and it explores in an anguished, powerfully personal way issues of history and justice, memory and love.
"Highly Recommended! This film outlines a grandmother's efforts over sixteen years to find [her granddaughter] and get back a piece of her lost family.Skillfully edited. A very good film."—Educational Media Reviews Online
2000 Award of Merit in Film, Latin American Studies Association
2000 National Women's Studies Association Film Festival
1999 Seattle Human Rights Film Festival
1999 Berlin International Film Festival