A deteriorated film, shot in 1982 in a Latin American country, presents a succession of everyday images, among which a few stand out that testify to the violent events that took place on May 9 of that year. Interspersed between the images, a man's voice presents the official version of the events. Beneath its apparent banality, the film raises suspicion that what really happened was covered up.

The images appear as though unearthed from a long-forgotten archive, their damaged frames bearing the marks of decades of neglect. Amid scenes of everyday life in an unnamed South American country are fleeting glimpses of unrest, hinting at the region’s turbulent political climate in 1982. An authoritative male voice-over guides us through these fragments, yet questions soon arise: Where exactly did these events take place? What, precisely, happened? And who damaged this historical record?

By building on our faith in the authenticity of archival footage, @09/05/1982@ draws the viewer into a web of inquiry. In its latter half, the film unveils a startling premise: what if these images are not archival at all, but AI-generated forgeries—meticulously crafted to mimic the look of degraded historical film? To confront this possibility demands a deeper reflection on how the paradigm of truth is shifting in our digital age—an age of images that lack the optical and chemical indexicality of lens and celluloid, yet remain no less convincing to the human eye.

09/05/1982 emerges from the encounter between Camilo Restrepo’s material cinema and Jorge Caballero's practice rooted in generative systems. They asked, what happens when archive no longer represents the past, but fabricates it? This exercise in critical imagination replaces testimony with suspicion, challenging the truth-value of images and reflecting on the algorithmic manipulation of memory in an age where fiction, history, and propaganda dangerously converge.

• ProducerAnna GIRALT GRIS
• Screenplay Jorge CABALLERO, Camilo RESTREPO
• Cinematography Jorge CABALLERO, Camilo RESTREPO
• Edit Camilo RESTREPO, Jorge CABALLERO
• Production Design Anna GIRALT GRIS
• Sound Jorge CABALLERO, Camilo RESTREPO