For nearly 35 years, Paraguayan dictator Gen. Alfredo Stroessner ruled with an iron grip, leaving behind a legacy of repression. Today, what remains of his massive statue in the capital city of Asunción are only steel boots, a symbol of his toppled regime. Filmmaker Juanjo Pereira examines that presence in his documentary Under the Flags, the Sun, which screened at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival after winning the FIPRESCI critics’ prize in the Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival.
Stroessner, who seized power in 1954, justified his rule under the banner of anti-communism while overseeing a system of control that included widespread torture and enforced disappearances. Over 20,000 political opponents were subjected to brutal repression, with hundreds vanishing without a trace. Given the regime’s tight control over information, archival material documenting these events is scarce. However, Pereira’s research uncovered 120 hours of footage from various sources worldwide, forming the foundation of his film.
The documentary presents a range of visual material, from propaganda films to newsreels, as well as footage from French journalists that sheds light on the inner workings of Stroessner’s rule. One sequence captures the dictator being received by U.S. President Lyndon Johnson in Washington, reflecting his role as a Cold War ally of the United States. While torture was never recorded on film, Stroessner’s government documented its actions in writing. The so-called “Archives of Terror,” discovered in 1992, became a key resource for Pereira’s investigation.
“The Terror Archives is one of the most important archives in Latin America,” Pereira said. “It’s free to go [and see], and it’s there in the Ministry of Justice.”
The film examines how Stroessner embedded himself in all aspects of Paraguayan life, fostering a cult of personality that stifled independent thought. As the dictator aged, his once-loyal allies in the Colorado Party turned on him, replacing him in 1989 with another military figure, Andrés Rodríguez Pedotti.
“In a way, the end of the dictatorship was not a revolutionary moment. It was a change of command,” Pereira observed. “The Colorado Party needed to change its image… It’s not the people taking power.”
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Though born after the fall of Stroessner’s regime, Pereira questions whether Paraguay has achieved genuine democracy. “The last election [the Colorado Party] won 80 percent [of the vote] and the government is full of Colorado people. We don’t have opposition in Paraguay. So is it a democracy?” he asked. “Maybe we need to find a new way to say what is the world we’re living in now.”
Pereira noted that his country’s history has largely erased Stroessner’s rule from education. “In school, we didn’t study this period of the country. So I finished school at 18 and I didn’t even know who was this guy,” he said. His personal search for Paraguay’s cinematic history led him to uncover more about the dictatorship, using archival materials to construct a narrative that challenges collective memory.
“The film is opening questions, proposing questions. This is my main goal,” Pereira explained. “We know so little about this period. For me, it is like we only know fragments and the movie is about fragments… I take all these fragments and I make this sense of memory.”
