Screening and presentation of Testimonianza di Urbano with Dr Laura Zambianchi, who will be in conversation with Marta Ungaro, Massimo Ortalli, and a note of address from Vicente Taquias Vergara, universally known by his battle name “Urbano”.
Thursday 26th November, 5.30pm-6.30pm, Thomas Paine Study Centre (TPSC) 2.01, University of East Anglia AND Online*.
Filmed in the mid-2000s, Testimonianza di Urbano is an oral history documentary based on the testimony of Vicente Taquias Vergara, known as Urbano, a Chilean worker, trade unionist and political activist who resisted the military coup in Chile on 11 September 1973. Urbano recounts his arrest, imprisonment and torture under Pinochet’s dictatorship, his subsequent involvement in clandestine resistance, and his eventual exile in Italy. His testimony also explores the challenges faced by Chilean political refugees, the struggle to hold Pinochet accountable, and the creation of Ecomemoria, an initiative that brings together historical memory and environmental conservation by planting trees as living memorials to those murdered or disappeared under the dictatorship. Through one man’s experiences, the documentary raises broader questions about political resistance, exile, historical memory and the continuing pursuit of justice. The event will feature selected excerpts from the documentary, followed by a conversation exploring connections between the experiences of repression and resistance in Chile and Argentina, and the importance of preserving the memory of the disappeared. This event is linked to a screening of Héctor Olivera’s Night of the Pencils.
Dr Laura Zambianchi is an Italian researcher, journalist, writer and educator based in the UK. She holds a PhD in Education and is Cultrice della materia at the University of Palermo. Her research combines qualitative methods with an interest in memory, identity and lived experience. Her interest in oral history and historical memory dates back to her undergraduate research in Italy, where her thesis and journalistic work explored the experiences of people affected by the military dictatorships in Chile and Argentina. During this period, she interviewed survivors and relatives of the disappeared, documented Ecomemoria events in Piemonte, and filmed Testimonianza di Urbano.
was an active anarcho-syndicalist labour organizer within the leather and shoe workers’ unions in Santiago. Following Pinochet’s seizure of power, Urbano was arrested, severely tortured, and detained alongside thousands of others in the infamous National Stadium of Santiago (Estadio Nacional). Tragedy struck his family on 15 October 1973, when his brother was shot and killed by state police. Urbano eventually managed to escape Chile and fled into exile, arriving in Italy in 1975 with his family.
*For those who wish to join online, please email Dr Syed Haider for an MS Teams Link: s.haider@uea.ac.uk
