École des Amériques

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Note of intent

In 95, I was discovering Latin America and collecting testimonies about the violations of the human rights in which many former soldiers of the School of the Americas had been involved. Beyond the macabre consequences that can be denied, the documentary aims to show how the military school of the Americas, by spreading its ideology, exporting its vision of the world and insuring the “national safety”, was responding to a major objective for Washington: the defense of its economic interests over all the continent.

Synopsis

Created in 1946, the School of the Americas served the purpose of training Latin American soldiers to promote the democratic values and to develop a better understanding of the United States. Reflecting the Monroe Doctrine (1823), the USA have defended tirelessly their political and economical interests in Latin America, often without worrying about the human rights. The key of this surveillance: The School of America, that welcomed 60 000 soldiers, including various militaries that have been a part of military coups. Tracing the history and the actions of this institution through archive images, the documentary will show how it has been one of the first source of destabilization of Latin America since 60 years, but also a tool for a new king of « american colonialism ».

Visual concept

The raw material of the documentary will be made up of archive images – military propaganda, activist films, documentaries or feature films… Without any intervention of an expert or any testimony, without the comment that imposes its point of view, the images will find their narrative power again. They will force the spectator to make up its own point of view, to read the history again according to what is known today. Images and comments will be interrogated, put into perspective, deconstructed and reconstructed by the editing.