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The role of a documentary filmmaker in an exhumation,
or any person who is in charge of obtaining testimonies,
is mainly to collect the work of the exhumation team.
But, also, to gather the testimonies that are expressed
or arise at the gravesite,
to complement the testimonies of the people in their homes.
There are people who don't speak in the exhumation
and there are people who do not go to the exhumation.
Some of the people who went before do not go back
because they were shocked by the situation.
Thus, let´s say, on the one hand,
we must be very mindful of everything that happens at the exhumation
because there are many things which emerge spontaneously and,
on the other hand, we must think a little
within the framework of history, collecting testimonies
that sometimes are not there and that we need to find.
Generally, the film team with which we usually film the interviews
and the exhumations tends to be a cameraman and an interviewer.
The ideal situation would be three people: a sound technician,
a camera technician and an anthropologist-director
who asks the questions and observes
what is happening from an outsider’s perspective.
However, sometimes the same person has to do all three or,
with some kind of help from a volunteer,
he acts as both camera technician and interviewer.
Before starting to do a field study,
the best thing is to make some prior contact,
to make the relationships with the neighbors and relatives closer,
since the camera intimidates people a little.
We must do prior work because sometimes
the person who addresses the camera
thinks that this filming has some sort of connection with television.
This generates different expectations
from what we are trying to obtain when we do a field study,
collecting the testimonies and filming the work of the exhumation.