With My Heart in Yambo

A daughter revisits a family tragedy that still haunts Ecuador

With My Heart in Yambo follows filmmaker María Fernanda Restrepo as she returns to the events that defined her life. In 1988, when she was only ten years old, her brothers Santiago and Andrés, aged fourteen and seventeen, vanished without a trace. Months later, the family learned the unbearable truth that the boys had been illegally detained, tortured, and murdered by members of the Ecuadorean police. Their bodies were thrown into Lake Yambo and have never been recovered. This confirmed political crime became one of the most disturbing moments in recent Ecuadorean history and revealed a profound failure of state accountability.

The documentary weaves together personal archives, voice-over narration, and contemporary encounters to reconstruct both the case and the long aftermath. Restrepo documents renewed searches of Lake Yambo, revisits the files surrounding the suspects, and reflects on the emotional toll of continuing to ask for justice. Her father’s persistent presence in Quito’s Presidential Palace Square, where he has protested every Wednesday for decades, and her mother’s constant letters to the authorities mark the family’s unbroken commitment to uncovering the truth.

As the film moves between past and present, it becomes an exploration of memory, grief, and resistance. It shows how the disappearance of Santiago and Andrés shaped the director’s understanding of her own identity and reveals the difficulty of leading a normal life while a case remains unresolved. With My Heart in Yambo stands as a poignant record of a devastating family trauma and an attempt to fill the empty spaces left by state silence, contributing to the larger regional history of desaparecidos and the ongoing search for justice.