The Imaginary Line

From an early age children are brought up very differently depending on their gender. The process of discovering the world is a veritable box of surprises in which school, the family and the media programme us about what it is to be a “good” girl or a “good” boy.

This is a marsh area in the very heart of the protected wetlands in the east of Uruguay, but today it has almost completely disappeared. A message in the Guaraní language, an "India Muerta" prayer, sounds the alarm about the dire consequences for nature of what human beings are doing.

In the east of Uruguay there is a little-known region of vast wetlands in a beautiful natural setting which is a sanctuary for thousands of species of flora and fauna. Although it is officially protected, it is under threat from rice producers who are draining parts of the area.

This documentary focuses on a little-known episode in the recent history of Uruguay: how hundreds of Uruguayan citizens took refuge in the Mexican embassy at the time of the military dictatorship. Between 1975 and 1976, Mexico was the only country whose embassy gave shelter to people persecuted by the regime, and this sparked off a difficult period in the relations between the two nations. We learn about conditions at the embassy at that time and how the fugitives lived. Sixteen of the men and women involved talk about what that period was like and the events that led up to this confrontation between the two countries. The documentary is also a homage to the Mexican ambassador, don Vicente Muñoz Arroyo.