Trauma and silence: strategies of mediation in the aftermath of civil war

The article argues that there are limitations in relying solely on witness testimony and archival material to document the continuing effects of civil war. It references Daniels' 41-minute film, Not Reconciled (2009), which concerns Belchite, a medieval town in the Aragon region of Northern Spain, and the three-week battle that took place there in 1937. The article explores the ways in which the utilization of fictionalized characters, the voices of ghosts of Republican and Nationalist fighters, can enhance the realist strategy of observational footage and testimony, and demonstrate witnesses' evasiveness and resistance to remembering. While the ruins of Belchite are silent, the voices of ghosts provide a sense of the simultaneity of past, present and future.