Manane Rodríguez, the filmmaker behind Migas de Pan screenplay and direction. Photo: Manane Rodríguez's personal archive and used with permission. Thirty-one years separate the civil-military dictatorship in Uruguay and the arrival of the film “Migas de Pan” (“Bread Crumbs”) in cinemas. The movie tells the story of Liliana, a Uruguayan woman who was arrested and tortured by the military and has to face her memories 30 years later. In the film, after returning home, Liliana becomes the center of a national debate about memory and justice. Uruguay's military dictatorship lasted 12 years (from 1973 to 1985). The regime locked up more than 300 political prisoners, including 55 women, according to a report: Uruguay Nunca Más. The resistance movement that sprung up during this time also relied on many women leaders. When the history is told today, however, their roles are generally overlooked and downplayed, in favor of narratives about men. Like the lead character in her movie, director Manane Rodríguez also fled the dictatorship in Uruguay in the 1970s, moving to Spain. She has completed several short feature films based on the works of the poet Mario Benedetti. “Since the beginning, I wanted to see this movie helping to remove the silence covering our recent past and taking women out of the shadows,” Manane told Global Voices. Her movie is entering its fifth week in theaters, attracting large audiences of people who say they identify with the film's story. Manane says the only thing that matters is the viewers leave the film sharing a single thought: “Nunca más.” (Never again.) Actress Justina Bustos, who plays the young version of leading character Liliana. Photo: Manane Rodríguez's personal archive and used with permission. Global Voices: What has inspired you to make a movie about women and the dictatorship period? How do you think female experiences back then were different from male ones? To me, what excited me was to make this movie a denounce. About a group of about 30 former political prisoners who accused a large group of military officers of sexually abusing them systematically. The case is still resting in some court’s drawer. This group of women, who had hardly over 20 years-old, besides being tortured through traditional methods were also raped by their executioners. After 30 years of silence, they decided to talk about it. Breaking the powerful taboo that precludes certain subjects and breaking this sickening silence that, somehow, blames them for being victims. Ivonne Trías, who is an author and a journalist and who was also arrested for many years at the Punta de Rieles Penitentiary, wrote that with the wisdom of their 20s, they established a red line: from the grid to the inside – us; from the grid to outside – them. With those parameters, they resisted all together to the project of moral and physical destruction [the military] had planned for them. They protected each other. They studied, shared knowledge. They kept their minds active and resisted to many obligations that were being imposed to them. And so they’ve continued, without renouncing to their own convictions, most of them alive and with a will for life. The central character is based in the stories of many women, not only in one in a literal way. She is a fiction character that, somehow, concentrates many situations that many women who were imprisoned at the maximum security prison by the Uruguayan dictatorship had to face. Argentinian actress Cecilia Roth, playing Liliana, returning to Uruguay 30 years after. Photo: Manane Rodríguez's personal archive and used with permission. I do not recognize MLN as the maximum freedom fighters in Uruguay. And, as of today, I think the sexism in Uruguay is as strong as in any other country of the world. Besides the spectacle behind some of the MLN’s actions, in Uruguay there were also other social organizations (unions, students and neighbouring ones) and political parties who fought the dictatorship when it arrived, but even before that, [they fought] against reactionary measures adopted by a right-wing government. In Uruguay, not only the story through a female point of view is not told, but there is actually very little narrative about this period as a whole. The denounces are still sleeping in some courtroom’s drawer, judges who investigate crimes against humanity are frequently pushed aside. There is a certain kind of official silence – supported by well-known members of MLN, who are occupying governmental positions for the past 11 years – that makes really hard to have a true NUNCA MÁS (never again) with truth, memory and justice. I was a student when the elected president and the military did the coup that cancelled all the constitutional guarantees.