ORIA FILMS

My father and half of my family were Nicaraguan, and I lived in Nicaragua from age nine until I was 19 years old (from 1980 to 1989); I was involved in the war, as much as everyone else around me.

The population in Nicaragua is intensely political, and everyone has a clear position. In the 1980’s these positions were deeply polarized: people were on one side or on the other. My father was a member of the FSLN, and my mother, my brothers and I were all Sandinistas.

Nevertheless, during the conflict we lived in the city, and in the long term the difference between city and countryside turned out to be a greater and more significant difference than that between one side and the other.

The countryside as a whole, its people and the land itself, was ravaged during the war, and not only during the final period but for 60 years of conflicts. And now, during the first period of peace, the capital city Managua is stewing in its own broth, caught up in electoral squabbles among mediocre and corrupt political parties, which do not have the slightest effect on the countryside; the communication channels between the city and the rest of the country have been severed for a long time.

This film took me back to my country after many years of absence, but this homecoming turned out not to be a loving experience, but a very unpleasant, stomach-churning experience that altered my perceptions and awareness.

I approached the countryside for the first time, because it had been impossible during the war, and I attempted to make sense of a lot of horror stories that had surfaced during the research process. The immediate reaction to those stories was to ask why there had not been a truth commission in Nicaragua, as there had been in other countries, and the answer was even more uncomfortable than the question: in a country where most people feel that they are both victims and executioners, we are all guilty.

I also understood that most combatants on both sides -- except for the leaders -- were not ideologically motivated to fight, but were coerced into joining one side or the other.

Ultimately, I do not have any answers, and that is not the aim of this documentary. What I aim to convey is that, although it is defined by the absence of an armed conflict, the post-war phase is a nebulous period that is still full of victims, and which lasts at least as long as the lives of the generations that lived through the war.

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