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Enforced disappearances in Mexico are due to criminal violence, but also to the State’s negligence, and its corresponding authorities and institutions, that elude their legal functions of keeping and guarding unidentified bodies in order to guarantee the pertinent investigations. The incorrect application of procedures leads to the commission of illegalities that give rise to the loss of unidentified bodies, making impossible or difficult for the relatives of the victims to recover them. This situation lays the foundations for double disappearance in Mexico, based on the omission of state responsibilities or its acquiescence with criminal networks.

In the context of the documentation of forensic investigations in Chile in the aftermath of the 1973–1990 military dictatorship, this article analyzes two documentary films by Chilean filmmaker Silvio Caiozzi,Fernando ha vuelto(Fernando is Back, 1998) and ¿Fernando ha vuelto a desaparecer?(Has Fernando Disappeared Again?, 2006) in relation to the traumatic process of forensic investigations and the representation of exhumations and the macabre phenomenon of the double disappearance. Often documentary films are seen as important contributors to the documentation of human rights abuses and a way for the victims of state repression to ‘tell their stories’. In the case of Caiozzi's films, the analysis also reveals the furtive effects of the systematic application of forced disappearance in families that generously contribute with forensic experts in the identification of their disappeared relatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]