LIVING IN EXILE

 

Leaving Argentina

On Thursday, June 24, 1976, Luis Politti boarded a plane to Mexico City, his future uncertain. Acquaintances had pressured him to leave Argentina. Three months earlier, on March 24, a military dictatorship had seized control of the Argentine government. A few days prior to his departure Politti had discovered that the new government had blacklisted him, and though his name had not been publicly denounced, he was prohibited from working in film, theater or television.

While attempting to clear up his situation with the authorities, Politti – thanks to help from General Arturo Corbetta* - managed to acquire a passport that would allow him to leave the country if necessity arose. On June 21, minutes after picking up his passport from Police Headquarters, accompanied by theater director Juan Cosín, he was stopped in front of the Department of Commerce, at Belgrano Avenue and Diagonal Sur, by a white Ford Falcon van with several men aboard. Politti and Cosín were detained and blindfolded and then taken to the Federal Security building, located one block from Police Headquarters. They were held for thirty-six hours, blindfolded and locked up in a cell with two seminary students who had been there for several months. Politti was interrogated a number of times about his participation in the movie "Los traidores" by Raymundo Gleyzer**, in which he appeared for a maximum of about two minutes. Although he was not physically tortured like so many others, his captors did mishandle, verbally abuse, and threaten to execute him. Thanks to steps taken by Cosín’s family and friends, the two were set free on Tuesday, June 22 at 4pm. Two days later, with only a couple dollars in his pocket, Politti left the country.

Mexico

Politti’s exile in Mexico was nothing short of difficult. When he arrived, no one had heard of him or his work due to the fact that Argentine cinema was little known in Mexico at the time. His entrance into the Mexican acting world was obstructed by strict labor laws imposed on foreigners by ANDA, the local actors’ guild. Though he did receive help from several generous people, the circumstances surrounding Politti’s violent expulsion from his country during the apex of his career hit him hard and it took many long months before he would recuperate from the traumatic experience. When his ex-wife and two youngest daughters, Carolina and Livia, arrived in Mexico, he was somewhat alleviated. Six months later, his girlfriend, Ana María Peña, joined him as well. With increased emotional stability in place, his work situation slowly began to improve. Still, Politti never found an outlet for his creative potential in Mexico and therefore, on July 26, 1977 – one year, one month and two days after arriving in the country – he departed for Spain to begin a new chapter in his life and career.

 Spain

Although he lived in Madrid less than three years in total, there Politti developed one of the most successful careers that 1970s’ Spanish cinema would witness. He was able to secure a part in the film "Las truchas" by José Luis García Sánchez thanks to help from Argentine colleagues already signed on to act in the same movie. This got him off on the right foot in the new country, as did the tremendous success the film "La Raulito" by Lautaro Murúa – where he played the part of the newspaper vendor that helps out Marilina Ross’ character – had found in Spain. Hence, he immediately had possibilities at his fingertips that had cost him much time and work to acquire in Argentina. When he died on June 14, 1980, his best performance in Spanish cinema – as the priest Eladio in the film "El nido" by Jaime de Armiñán – still hadn’t been released. At the time around his death, he had been working on stage alongside Carmen Maura, Marisa Paredes, María Asquerino and Julieta Serrano, among others, and had several offers that would have continued to bolster his growth within this artistic medium in Spain. Despite this, his four children were far away and the possibility of his returning to Argentina remained bleak.

Gabriel Lerman

* Brigade General Arturo Corbetta was the first police chief of the military dictatorship. He belonged to the new military regime’s "legal wing", which had proposed fighting the guerillas via legal means rather than via the dirty war as proposed by the harsh majority of the Armed Forces. During the brief time he held office, Corbetta helped many actors and artists in trouble to obtain the necessary documents to leave the country. However, when a bomb set off by the resistance group, the Montoneros, exploded at a Federal Security building (the same one where Politti had been detained), an internal rebellion within the police department forced him to quit after he fired two high chiefs under his command. A short while later, his home was violently leveled by mandate of the dictatorship.

 

** Raymundo Gleyzer had already been killed by the dictatorship’s contracted police force when Politti was abducted. The filmmaker had been taking care of paperwork in the United States when the military coup took place and although he had been warned not to return to Argentina, he returned home in April of 1976. On Friday, May 26 he was abducted and taken to the concentration camp called El Vesubio. He was apparently killed alongside writer Haroldo Conti on June 20, 1976.