DIRECTOR: Juanjo Pereira
STARRING: Documentary
RUNNING TIME: 1 hr 30 minutes
LANGUAGE: Spanish, French, German, Guarani, Portuguese, English
PLOT: This fully archival film traces the 35-year rule of Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay, uncovering rare footage to illuminate one of the longest dictatorships in modern history and the enduring scars it left behind.
GENRE: Drama
FILMING LOCATION: Asuncion, Paraguay
To check out all previous submissions for Paraguay, click HERE.
STARRING: Documentary
RUNNING TIME: 1 hr 30 minutes
LANGUAGE: Spanish, French, German, Guarani, Portuguese, English
PLOT: This fully archival film traces the 35-year rule of Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay, uncovering rare footage to illuminate one of the longest dictatorships in modern history and the enduring scars it left behind.
GENRE: Drama
FILMING LOCATION: Asuncion, Paraguay
To check out all previous submissions for Paraguay, click HERE.
FILM REVIEW:
(This review contains spoilers.)
“Thanks to him, we all live a great life in our country."
Juanjo Pereira’s Under the Flags, the Sun is the kind of film that sneaks up on you. At first, it feels like a straightforward historical piece, rooted in Paraguay’s turbulent past, but it quickly becomes something far more layered. By relying on archival materials, Pereira pulls the audience into a world where official narratives and personal memories blur. The result is a documentary that feels alive, haunted by the shadows of dictatorship yet pulsing with the resilience of those who endured it.
The film’s greatest strength lies in its use of images long buried in archives. Pereira doesn’t just present these documents as artifacts; he weaves them into a cinematic fabric that reveals the texture of life under Alfredo Stroessner’s 35-year regime. Faces of ordinary people, silent parades, staged speeches, and fleeting glimpses of dissent all come together like fragments of a puzzle. The editing is fluid and intuitive, allowing the audience to discover meaning rather than having it dictated to them. It’s as if the film asks us to look harder, to read between the frames for what was deliberately left unsaid.
There’s also a quiet poetry in the way Pereira handles silence and stillness. Long stretches without narration leave space for reflection, and the gaps in the archive, the absences, the erasures, speak just as loudly as what is shown. By avoiding heavy-handed commentary, Pereira lets the viewer sit with discomfort, uncertainty, and even contradictions. It’s not about presenting a tidy history lesson; it’s about feeling the weight of a past that still shapes Paraguay’s collective psyche. The restraint is remarkable, and it gives the film its emotional power.
Under the Flags, the Sun isn’t just a documentary about dictatorship, it’s about memory, endurance, and the struggle to reclaim history from silence. The title itself resonates deeply: “flags” evoke the heavy symbolism of national identity, often manipulated by power, while “the sun” suggests illumination, clarity, and hope. Pereira’s film insists that reckoning with the past is not only necessary but urgent, because the shadows of authoritarianism don’t disappear on their own. By unearthing images once buried, he offers viewers a chance to see, to remember, and to carry those memories forward into the light.
(This review contains spoilers.)
“Thanks to him, we all live a great life in our country."
Juanjo Pereira’s Under the Flags, the Sun is the kind of film that sneaks up on you. At first, it feels like a straightforward historical piece, rooted in Paraguay’s turbulent past, but it quickly becomes something far more layered. By relying on archival materials, Pereira pulls the audience into a world where official narratives and personal memories blur. The result is a documentary that feels alive, haunted by the shadows of dictatorship yet pulsing with the resilience of those who endured it.
The film’s greatest strength lies in its use of images long buried in archives. Pereira doesn’t just present these documents as artifacts; he weaves them into a cinematic fabric that reveals the texture of life under Alfredo Stroessner’s 35-year regime. Faces of ordinary people, silent parades, staged speeches, and fleeting glimpses of dissent all come together like fragments of a puzzle. The editing is fluid and intuitive, allowing the audience to discover meaning rather than having it dictated to them. It’s as if the film asks us to look harder, to read between the frames for what was deliberately left unsaid.
There’s also a quiet poetry in the way Pereira handles silence and stillness. Long stretches without narration leave space for reflection, and the gaps in the archive, the absences, the erasures, speak just as loudly as what is shown. By avoiding heavy-handed commentary, Pereira lets the viewer sit with discomfort, uncertainty, and even contradictions. It’s not about presenting a tidy history lesson; it’s about feeling the weight of a past that still shapes Paraguay’s collective psyche. The restraint is remarkable, and it gives the film its emotional power.
Under the Flags, the Sun isn’t just a documentary about dictatorship, it’s about memory, endurance, and the struggle to reclaim history from silence. The title itself resonates deeply: “flags” evoke the heavy symbolism of national identity, often manipulated by power, while “the sun” suggests illumination, clarity, and hope. Pereira’s film insists that reckoning with the past is not only necessary but urgent, because the shadows of authoritarianism don’t disappear on their own. By unearthing images once buried, he offers viewers a chance to see, to remember, and to carry those memories forward into the light.
