The film is based on the real political events that took place in Argentina after Jorge Rafael Videla's reactionary military junta assumed power on March 24, 1976.

During the junta's rule: the parliament was suspended, unions, political parties and provincial governments were banned, and in what became known as the Dirty War between 9,000 and 30,000 people deemed left-wing "subversives" disappeared from society.

[1] As the country celebrated its win of the World Cup, many political activists were tortured in Buenos Aires and then later taken on "death flights", where victims were drugged and then dropped alive into the Atlantic Ocean from military aircraft.

Chilean born director Marco Bechis was a victim of the country's military regime and was forced to leave Argentina in 1977, at the age of 20, for political reasons.

Yet, despite his admirable insistence on moving us with the truth (helped by his grainy camera work), Bechis can also tell a tale and he gradually incorporates a race-against-time element.