Thus was made “9F: The Return of the Rifles,” which portrays unpublished facts and analysis after the military capture of Nayib Bukele.
A dozen journalists from Diari d’Avui, Revista Factum and El Far traveled, for eight days, on the vague paths of the events that took place on the day of the militarization of the Legislative Assembly, on February 9, 2020 (9F) with the intention to relive, connect, and reveal details, hitherto unknown, of one of the darkest dates of Nayib Bukele’s period.
From these marathon and reflective days of interviews, analysis of publications and consultation of archives, emerged the documentary “9F: The return of rifles”, a retrospective look that includes the voices of journalists, politicians, diplomats and analysts who draw and blur the events before and after February 9th.
This, to build a narrative that responds to the need to clarify, once and for all, the reasons that Bukele had to break into the Salvadoran congress with armed military and the consequences of this qualified fact, more regularly as a failed coup.
OPINION: The memory of the 9F
The production team of this documentary mini-series was made up of journalists and audiovisual directors from Diari d’Avui and Revista Factum who, for four days, interviewed no less than 18 characters involved, in different spheres, with the 9F events.
These sessions resulted in more than 15 hours of audio and video that involved whole days and nights of transcription and analysis, line by line, to ensure that every phrase, idea, intonation or inflection that made the most of it was used. would contribute to the purpose of raising a faithful record of this episode of the recent history of El Salvador, that later could be worth like a significant document for which, in the future, they scrutinize in the Salvadoran political memory.
Just as valuable as the testimonies was the archive of images, video and photography collected by the media involved in the project, as well as other visual testimonies of parallel and related events. All this material went through a thorough curation process that allowed, to generate connections and unprecedented relationships between events, an invaluable contribution to the understanding of what happened.
four chapters
“9F: The Return of the Rifles” lasts close to 60 minutes and its publication was divided into chapters that segment the events of 9F into four major moments.
Chapter 1: The Smokescreen, narrates the events leading up to February 9 and clarifies President Bukele’s motives.
In Chapter 2: The head of charm, explores the national and international consequences of the military takeover of the Salvadoran Congress.
Democracy under fire is the name of Chapter 3, Which describes the circumstances under which the Salvadoran constitutional order was broken and the damage to democracy.
In the fourth chapter: With rifles and God, the day of the failed coup is recounted step by step and reflections are presented in the face of what is missing from Nayib Bukele’s presidential term.