At 9:53 on the morning of July 18, 1994, a suicide bomber drove a Renault Trafic van loaded with explosives into the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina, a Jewish community center in the bustling commercial neighborhood of Once, Buenos Aires. The explosion left eighty-five people dead and over three hundred wounded. Published in Spanish amid widespread controversy, Once@9:53am imagines the two hours before the attack through the popular format of the fotonovela. Part documentary, part fiction, this vivid retelling of Argentina’s deadliest bombing depicts a vibrant, complex urban community in the hours before its identity was forever changed. A unique and powerful visual experience, Once@9:53am is both a commemoration of an atrocity that shifted Latin American Jewish identity in innumerable ways and an ingenious use of a popular format to explore the dangerous intersection of politics and religion in Latin America.
