A Twelve-Year Night

A Twelve-Year Night is a 2018 drama film directed by Álvaro Brechner. It premiered in Official Selection at the 75th Venice International Film Festival, and it was selected as the Uruguayan entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards, but it was not nominated. The film won the Golden Pyramid Award at the 40th Cairo International Film Festival. It is a co-production between Uruguay, Spain, Argentina, France and Germany. The film follows the twelve-year incarceration of members of the , a left-wing urban guerrilla group active in the 1960s and 1970s, nine of whom were held as "hostages" between 1972 and 1985. It dramatises the experiences of José Mujica, Mauricio Rosencof and Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro. Mujica later became the 40th president of Uruguay from 2010 to 2015. Plot In 1973 Uruguay, the country is ruled by a civic-military dictatorship, and the National Army is embroiled in guerilla warfare with the leftist Tupamaros group. Three Tupamaros members, José "Pepe" Mujica, Mauricio Rosencof and Eleuterio Fernández Huidobro, are held as hostages in a government-run prison. In the next twelve years, they are repeatedly relocated to military bases around the country. As the military is unable to kill the men owing to international pressure, it decides to torment them mentally instead. The hostages are subjected to petty rules and abuses, including solitary confinement and a mock execution. Under pressure from the hostages' families, the military chief permits a brief reunion in the prison grounds, but warns the men to be silent.