At eight was the son of one of the richest and most powerful men in the world. At sixteen, few minutes after shutting off the phone with him, his father was gunned down and he swore revenge on the radio. Sixteen years later, after a stay in prison on charges of money laundering, a turbulent exile a decade of anonymity in Argentina with new life and identity and the long ordeal of taking care of the past on his back, Juan Pablo Escobar returns to light in Sins of My Father, a documentary directed by Nicolas Entel in Argentina reviewing your life with her father and meets the children of Luis Carlos Galan and Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, two killed for their political father, to apologize


Two December 1993, Colombia shaken awake. In every house are turned on radios, televisions, all tuned hear the news of the day: Pablo Escobar met. Detained for months in a middle-class neighborhood of Medellin, withdrawn and separated from his family, King of the Coca just committed the worst mistake of his life. In a fit of desperation, she called her son John Paul to the hotel of the Armed Forces who has taken refuge with his mother and sister state order, spoke longer than he would have liked, ignored the child's encryption keys (" quiet, Grandma, do not worry, do not call more "), I ended up crawling. So peeks through the curtains and babbles a "call you right now." So crashes, spins, and is military, paramilitary or armed groups. Everyone there, surrounding the house. Escobar sighs, just open the window, calculate the distance to the roof. By now, everyone knows him as the most cruel drug lord in Colombia, the most deadly strain on the back. Having escaped from the notorious prison Cathedral (which he had built) for fear of a possible move, is pursued by the CIA, the DEA, the Colombian Army, the armed group Los Pepes (People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar), members of the cartel Cali and even some grudging Medellin Cartel, who still leads. Are not many options. It draws the flip-flops, belly prominent beard, jump onto the roof, clutching his two revolvers and amid shouts and insults began a disproportionate shooting ends in less than three minutes. Pablo Escobar is dead.

The image moves quickly. Journalists take photos, send cables, make calls. Tirado and covered in blood, Escobar's body is now a matter of state. The soldiers around him and smile at the trophy of war will be over the next few days on television. Across the city, sitting on the bed and staring at the phone, his son John Paul is unaware of what just happened. Minutes of silent waiting until a reporter called him to tell her the news. Then the boy, sixteen years, big guy, the same brilliance of Paul in the eye, it jumps up and swears revenge on the radio, to an entire country: "I'm going to kill himself." A déjà vu all listen in terror. Just a few minutes later, called to say that he repents, he will not avenge the death of his father, he will not avenge, repeat, the only thing he cares about is the future of your family suffered and do something to reign peace in their country. And here begins another story of the son who seeks redemption. In a tour almost Borges, Pablo Escobar Juan plays the man who, at the last moment, he discovers who he is and twist your fate forever. "I almost by the backpack, I almost believe the story that I had to answer for my dad," he says today, sixteen years later, with a determination that captivated the Argentine director Nicolas Entel when she met her story and decided to reflect in a documentary called Sins of my father, this intimate process based atoning apologize to the children of politicians killed by Pablo Escobar.

The other, the same

Leave your country, change his identity to that of Sebastián Marroquín, transformed into another without ceasing to be himself, to settle in Argentina and avoid talking about the past. All that had to Juan Pablo, from now on Sebastian to continue with their lives. Colombian shouting something in the Argentine at the spectator from the first moment he appears on camera Marroquín saying "my daddy." And an angelic picture of Pablo Escobar in his first Communion represents "the only moment of honesty" that Sebastian might have to his Argentine friends without fear of being recognized. But not only that. The tenderness of the photo disturbing turn condenses the contradictions of Colombia's most popular drug. A man who led the Medellin cartel and 80 percent of the cocaine trade, which was expelled from the New Liberalism founded by Rodrigo Lara Bonilla and Luis Carlos Galan when his activities came to light and that, nevertheless, entered the Congress as an alternate member and wanted a political career building soccer fields, stadiums and even a housing complex called Barrio Pablo Escobar, which earned him the nickname "Robin Hood." An egomaniac who began his ascent line buying the Hacienda Napoles, setting up a zoo of exotic animals in it ("watching the wildlife encyclopedias and chose what I wanted to have animals on the farm," says Marroquin with a smile, before the video inviting people to know the place) and, at 25, he was one of the seven characters world's richest by Forbes magazine. That only a few years later did not hesitate to kill politicians and civilians who crosses his path, which set the pattern of car bombs in the war against the Cali cartel, which unleashed an army of assassins inaugurating the most violent period in Colombia and was able to blow up an Avianca plane with 108 people, by the mere suspicion (failed) that there carrying President Cesar Gaviria. Could it be that this same man will enjoy reading to your child's tale "The Three Little Pigs"? Marroquin looks at the camera, pulls a tape recorder, play sets. When listening to the monotonous voice of Escobar repeating that classic tale of childhood, which is not touched by the story itself, but the look of the son to hear. "It would be easier for us to go out to criticize, but would not be honest," says Sebastian. People can not complain that we've had a loving relationship with him. "The difficulty, let us agree, is not to demonize somebody. The problem is to assimilate the nuances, admit that if I thought like a criminal Pablo Escobar, was also capable of acting as a parent. A good father, judging by the photos, videos, anecdotes of daily intimacy cut on a country immersed in death: family vacations, Monopoly games, afternoon pool, shared laughter, roller coasters at Disney, electric toy cars, all those nights waiting for her henpecked husband to sleep.

Neither heroes nor villains

But any documentary reconstructs itself a story. And if history tends to be epic, the counterpart of the villain is the hero. In this case, two heroes: clean and honest politicians who (literally) gave their lives for their country. Because the historical record of Sins of My Father also shows how, while the U.S. middle class fell delivered to cocaine and raised its target Escobar empire, the then Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla was fighting his personal battle, knowing that his life danger. In '84 he ordered a raid on the laboratory Tranquilandia, and seized tons of cocaine, worth 1,200 million dollars. The hardest blow against the drug business of history and Escobar himself, which was publicly denounced and forced to resign as the U.S. Congress canceled his visa. A few months later, Lara Bonilla was murdered in the street by thugs who shot him in the head from a motorcycle. Without blame or punishment, the Escobar took refuge in Panama and later in Nicaragua. Sebastian had just seven years and recalls that period as a continuous flood of tears: "Nicaragua was devastated by the war I was living. They called me to lunch and cried, called me to play and cried, called me to go outside and wept because he saw an even bigger wall. " He later returned to Colombia, where the Medellin cartel continued to operate until Escobar ordered in '89 murder his second public enemy: the presidential candidate for the New Liberalism, Luis Carlos Galan. Also there, in full political act and the view. So come on stage is when the other children, four in total: Rodrigo Lara and Carlos, and Claudio Juan Manuel Galan. Like Sebastian, also sees them little kids, vulnerable, innocent. They are shown going from arm to arm, between sobs, hugs outside, funerals televised angry crowd. Boys who became men today and fly the flags of their parents as martyrs. In this sense, the finding was reversed by Nicolas Entel Manichaeism putting everyone on the same level. Hence the idea of a letter it conducive to meeting Marroquín with the heirs of Colombian democracy and the effort of months to convince him to write it. Finally, in February 2008, the three sons of Galan and the son of Lara Bonilla came together to read that letter Pablo Escobar's son suggested they meet to "not repeat history," claimed he knew where all the pain had led his father and the fact of being born into a fertile environment for violence but did not push it in their search for peace. Minutes of silence, eyes that cross until finally speaks Juan Manuel Galan and qualify the initiative for "brave and noble." It is not easy, think from all the pain dimension of social condemnation that exists on that family.

DNA

It is not easy. Even now, already spent so much time. Maybe that's why so many Marroquín was itching to write this letter. Fears that had to do, first of all, with the possibility of the offense. "It took me almost ten days in writing. There was no word just seemed to me that all the might offend. And my father had caused suffering big enough for me to hate me too. I did not want to compare, but neither wanted to stay silent, because I also had my own experience, "he says. As yet were afraid to travel to Colombia, the first encounter with the son of Lara Bonilla was implemented by Argentina, in Tigre, surrounded by trees and birds in this kind of "suburb", as the voiceover describes the documentary. The plan is closed to them both sitting on a bench and tells Rodrigo Lara Marroquín today it is still remembered in Colombia for the words he spoke on the radio was just announced the death of Escobar. Compassionate, admits he swore to avenge his father, doors in the room. Childhood fantasies with shouts and guns, he says. Sebastian nods and takes the confession to ask you to please put in place. That if he imagined the eight dark revenge, think about what could happen to a sixteen. From victim to victim, he asks. "I lost the right to be angry, he will say alone. I said that like any angry teenager might have said. But what I said, taking this name, and the social burden is strong. I said 'You are the son of Pablo Escobar, then it is a danger'. "

To this point, that the enemies of his father summoned him after his death, to give indications of what to do if I wanted to stay alive. A meeting which will Marroquin was in fact sure that they would kill him. But they just said I had to leave Colombia and never get in the drug trafficking business. The decision was emigrating with his mother (Maria Isabel Santos) to Argentina, where even changing his name from everything, studying architecture and industrial design at the University of Palermo, was and will be understood that DNA carrier Escobar, as a stamp marking a fire that is useless to keep denying. The year was '99 when the counter both discovered his true identity and tried to extort money. The immediate reaction was to complain to the Court ("we wanted to continue carrying it around forever") but then were arrested on charges of "money laundering." Sebastian came to 45 days and his mother was 18 months dam, a cause that just seven years after it was completely closed, declaring them innocent. Sebastian explains with the same sad resignation that explains the rest: "Suddenly they put you in jail for the crime of kinship, in the context of a complaint that you yourself promote. It was the last straw, was disappointing. It seemed that nothing had changed, so many years of effort were worth nothing, everything did not care. It was the same behave or misbehave: roads led to prison, or death. " And all because of the complexity of an inheritance to this day does not finish processing. Who is he anyway? If at the beginning of the documentary is heard saying "I am nobody" may come to light and displayed publicly as a way of exorcising ghosts. "I live a continuous process of reinvention," he says. I have the past back, but I've also been able, in Argentina, where a NN for ten years, to avoid bias before greeting. Now I feel a little thinner. I'm calmer, I have no pressure of having to hide anything. "Not only because he discovered that you can keep moving within your circle of Buenos Aires with its head held high, but because in Colombia itself, where the documentary has already been released, the reaction of the media and political parties was more respectful than I expected. What's more, the newspaper El Colombiano popular launched a survey entitled "Do you forgive the son of Pablo Escobar?" And 87 percent of responses were positive. "I could not believe. If I had said about 30 percent, I would have thought a lot, "says Sebastian, who says he never had much fear as the premiere, when he returned home and attended the cinema" trusting in the protection of God. "

Part of the proceeds with the documentary will be donated to United Nations Foundation to help families displaced by Colombia's armed groups linked to drug trafficking. Marroquin said that is where the problem lies beyond what each one privately. Although he swears he never used cocaine (we know that Pablo Escobar despised the addicts), their position is clear: "Do not encourage personal consumption, but I am respectful. That cocaine is prohibited in Colombia is ridiculous, it's as if we ban eating meat Cristina. " The important thing happening on the other side: Sebastian again put the focus on the final meeting of all children who, he believes, was read as a call for peace by the media, politicians and the Colombian people themselves. Something that on this side of the map is rather a genuine, touching gesture of nobility. Marroquin looking into his eyes and ask forgiveness for all that he did his father, the sons of Lara Bonilla Galan and you return a "you're not Pablo Escobar, we have nothing to forgive." The desire to set an example and calling for a pardon on behalf of another, in a country that has not had justice.

Sins of My Father premieres on April 22.