On the night of September 4-5, 1988, Isidre and Dolors Orrit disappeared from the Sant Joan de Déu de Manresa Hospital without leaving a trace and under mysterious circumstances. Isidre was 5 years old and her sister Dolors was 17. Almost 35 years after the disappearance, the case remains unresolved and the responsibilities have never been cleared up. The documentary Els Orrit, directed by Ferran Ureña and Marc Solanes, has reconstructed the events, giving a voice to the family and the role played by journalists such as Paco Lobatón who, with the RTVE program Who Knows Where, played a key role in the investigation.
Despite being a debut feature, the documentary was selected in May at DocsBarcelona 2023 where its world premiere took place. During the event, it could also be viewed on Filmin and from October or November it will be available again on a platform with which it is negotiating.
Els Orrit recovers from oblivion a case that has been left out of media interest for years. Isidre was admitted for a mouth infection and her sister Dolors visited him often. “It seemed to Ferran and me that it was very brutal that two children disappeared from a hospital and that this story was little or not known by people,” Solanes tells La Vanguardia about the genesis of the project that was born by making a newspaper library.
The two directors contacted the sister who has led the investigation all these years, Mari Carmen, and the lawyer handling the case. Despite initial reluctance (“the brothers are exhausted and in some cases have had a bad television experience”), the family’s approval was obtained to carry out the documentary, in which four of the 12 brothers of the disappeared participate. the mother, journalists who reported on the case and criminologists.
Els Orrit also raises the way in which society and the media of the time were not always up to the task of such tragic events. “The drama that involves losing two children or siblings in a hospital and not having any kind of support from the administrations seems like a novel case,” denounces Solanas, for whom “it gives the feeling that the administrations never took the case seriously.”
“The police took it in the first instance as a mischief by the children,” points out the director, who sees a social class issue in the background. “It was a very poor family, 14 siblings who lived in a Manresa neighborhood and the first thing the police say they have run away and are buying ice cream.” For its part, the management of the hospital, which depended on the Church, defends itself by saying that it is not a prison and that whoever they want can come and go. “These are extremely inappropriate responses when two children have disappeared.”
After two years making the documentary, Solanes reduces the hypotheses of what could have happened to three: “Either they left on their own foot, or someone took them or they never left the hospital.” That they leave is quite ruled out “because Dolors had little initiative and certain learning difficulties; In addition, he had a rather serious vision problem and the glasses stayed on a hospital bed ”.
Regarding the possibility that they did not leave the hospital, Solanes points out that “in fact, during the police investigation, the dogs lost track of the children at the emergency door of the same hospital.” And about someone kidnapping them, a detective who helped the family later “pointed to the father’s Portuguese relatives, who believed that the mother could not take care of so many children after the father’s death.” With what there is some coincidence, without having any proof, “is that the objective was the five-year-old boy”, summarizes Solanes, who also speaks of other theories such as “possible organ trafficking”.
One of the brothers who participates in the documentary, Jordi, defines this case “as a labyrinth because every time a door was opened a wall appeared”, in reference to the ecclesiastical institution in charge of the hospital at that time. “The Church does not open the doors to find out what could have happened or, at least, it did not favor the investigation that, as the institution responsible for the hospital, it should have done.” The current management team of the hospital participates in the documentary saying that it has nothing to do with the religious order that was in charge in 1988.
While waiting for Els Orrit to tour international festivals, streaming platforms and television channels, “we have a little hope that maybe someone somewhere in the world can shed light on the disappearance.” Dolors and Isidre would be 52 and 40 years old today, respectively. “If no one says anything, the most likely hypothesis would be that they never left the hospital because if they had and were alive, some time later, statistically speaking, someone would have ended up saying something,” concludes Solanes.
