This screening of “The Judge and the General” will be the Washington, DC, premiere of this important documentary exploring the personal transformation of Chilean judge Juan Guzmán, the 2005 recipient of the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award. For more than 30 years, IPS has hosted this awards program in the names of two colleagues, Orlando Letelier and Ronni Karpen Moffitt, who were assassinated by agents of Pinochet in 1976.

About the film: When in 1998 Chilean judge Juan Guzmán was assigned the first criminal cases against the country’s ex-dictator, General Augusto Pinochet, no one expected much. Guzmán had supported Pinochet’s 1973 coup — waged as an anti-Communist crusade — that left the democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, and thousands of others dead or “disappeared.” The filmmakers trace the judge’s descent into what he calls “the abyss,” where he uncovers the past — including his own role in the tragedy. “The Judge and the General” reveals one of the 20th century’s most notorious episodes and tells a cautionary tale about violating human rights in the name of “higher ideals.”

About the filmmakers

Elizabeth Farnsworth, Producer/Director
Elizabeth Farnsworth was chief correspondent and principal substitute anchor on PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer from 1995-2000. She then became a senior correspondent, reporting mostly from overseas. She now freelances for The NewsHour and makes documentaries.

Patricio Lanfranco, Producer/Director
Patricio Lanfranco, a Chilean citizen living in Santiago, has been a researcher and producer for two decades. As senior producer of the news department of Chilean National TV (TVN), he produced the live television coverage of the 1995 trial of Manuel Contreras, former chief of Pinochet’s secret police, for the 1976 Washington, D.C. murder of Orlando Letelier. Letelier worked at the Institute for Policy Studies at the time of his assassination. Because of the broadcast, Chileans were able for the first time to watch attorneys present evidence in an official setting of human rights crimes committed by the secret police.

For additional information on screenings in other cities and TV broadcasts, see: www.westwindproductions.org/the-judge-and-the-general.html