On the day of their assassination by Rafael Trujillo’s regime, the Mirabal sisters visited their husbands in Puerto Plata prison. When they returned home, a police squad crossed their path. Terror crossed their faces: they knew what was going to happen next.
This is the starting point of “The Cry of the Butterflies”, the new series Star+, which tells the struggle of these three activists against the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, a resistance movement in which one figure stood above all the others: Minerva Mirabal.
“I would describe her (Minerva) as a very admirable and confident woman; a woman who, despite everything, follows her ideology and her opinion and nothing will silence her. It’s not that he isn’t scared, but he believes blindly in his fight,” Spanish actress Susana Abaitua, who plays the role of Arantxa Oyamburu, the play’s other protagonist, told EFE.
Argentinian filmmaker Juan Pablo Buscarini’s “The Scream of the Butterflies” consists of thirteen chapters and will be released on Wednesday to mark International Women’s Day.
OPPRESSION AGAINST WOMEN
Brought to power after the overthrow of President Horacio Vásquez, Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, nicknamed “El Chivo”, ruled the Dominican Republic with an iron fist between 1930 and 1961; a regime based on the repression of civil liberties, the repression of all forms of opposition and the cult of the “boss” personality.
The women were hit the hardest. Confined to the domestic sphere and raising their children, they were degraded to mere sexual objects over time “Trajillo Era”who revived a practice from the Middle Ages: the “derecho de pernada”, that is, the possibility of raping the daughters and wives of his officials with complete impunity.
“I’ll admit that before the show, I wasn’t really aware of what this man is: Concentration camps for homosexuals, sovereignty… He was a sadistic and psychopathic man,” says Abaitua, whose character — who didn’t exist in real life — is representative of all the women who suffered under the regime.
“Everything this woman (Arantxa) goes through, that she ends up being imprisoned, a victim of all these horrors, these rapes, this world, this lie… The filming was very hard and at the same time very satisfying to say. We spent six months in Colombia and we were all together and believed in the story a lot,” adds the Basque actress.
Minerva Mirabal (1926–1960) lived and grew up in this context, played by the Dominican Sandy Hernández. Born into a wealthy rural family, she developed a genuine interest in art and literature at an early age, leading to a strong stance in favor of democracy and human rights.
Along with her sisters Patria and María Teresa, Minerva was one of the most visible faces of opposition to Trujillo, something punishable by death: on the 25th driver died under the direct orders of the ‘goat’. Their bodies turned up in their vehicle, which they tried to disguise as a traffic accident.
INTERNATIONAL EXAMPLE
The murder of the Mirabals was not in vain. His death caused a deep shock in Dominican society and sparked anti-regime protests that culminated in the assassination of Trujillo on May 30, 1961.
For Belén Rueda, who plays the character of Pilar Macías, The Scream of the Butterflies is a “very educational” series and should therefore be taught in schools to explore the reasons that led this group of women to get involved such a brutal fight for freedom.
“In certain countries, women have advanced rights and we need to know that there have been women who have lost their lives because we are like this now (…). It’s a series that I think is necessary,” she says Spanish interpreter for EFE.
During the call, Abaitua and Rueda admitted they were unaware that the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women precisely commemorates the death of the Mirabal sisters, underscoring the “need” to “make this story known.”
“Keeping these kinds of shows going, telling stories of hate and violence, I think is to make a difference and get people’s attention and not try to replicate it, or that’s what I believe want,” says Abaitua.