The Chilean offer at Sunny Side of the Doc includes the Chile-Canada miniseries Extreme of the Americas, about climate change, which is selected in the market’s Wildlife & Conservation pitch section, as well as four other new doc projects to be presented June 21 during the market’s Chilean presentation.
Directed by Miguel Soffia and Kelsey Eliasson, Extreme of the Americas is a documentary miniseries about climate change that assesses its terrible consequences through the stories of residents, researchers, animal wildlife and the indigenous peoples that inhabit the extreme territories of the continent, from Chilean Patagonia to the Canadian Arctic.
“Species are disappearing, and it is a reality that affects geography; it is an urgent issue to address. We decided to do it this way, through a documentary series, because it’s a more complex phenomenon than just a linear story,” stresses co-director Miguel Soffia.
“Lakes drying up, heatwaves, species extinction, the poles melting causing sea-level rise; all of these are part of a phenomenon that we cannot ignore: global warming,” the makers further underline.
The six-part doc series is made by Soffia’s production company We Are South and Canadian outfit Wolfhouse Films, and dovetails with Sunny Side’s ecological and climate change agenda, the makers acknowledge. “We are aware of what this market means for the documentary industry in Europe, Asia, and North America, so it is an honour and a huge responsibility to represent Chile and Latin America and provide contents with other perspectives, a perspective from the south,” comments Soffia.
Adds ProChile General Director Jorge O’Ryan: “Our outstanding participation in this prestigious event [Sunny Side] confirms the recognition that Chilean documentaries have achieved in a market as important as France and, at the same time, supports the work that we are developing with Chiledoc in the internationalization of documentary filmmakers, despite the pandemic and the adaptation of face-to-face activities to an online format. We will deepen our positioning through a series of actions aimed at distributors, sales agents, and decision-makers, especially from the French television industry; this is the focus of our participation in Sunny Side. Creative talent is part of the exportable offer of our country.”
ProChile and Chiledoc will present four other documentary projects during the La Rochelle event, starting June 21 during Sunny Side’s Chile focus. “We have a high-level delegation attending with projects ranging from series to feature films, from highly contingent themes to others focused on the value of history and heritage. We hope that they forge new alliances and possibilities for both co-production and distribution,” says Paula Ossandón, Director of Chiledoc.
Chilépolis, directed by Simon Vargas and produced by Magdalena Hurtado and Ignacio Merino of production company Tres Tercios, is a TV documentary that portrays the life of three immigrants from different countries in Chile. “In the eight episodes of this program, we learn about their origins and different ways of thinking. It is a work that highlights migration as a human right,” the docmakers stress.
On another note, Relentless Memory, directed by Paula Rodriguez Sickert and produced by Paola Castillo from Errante Producciones, is a documentary about a historic revelation. “The discovery of forgotten files in a museum in Berlin, and through testimonies, reveals how indigenous people were deported and stripped of their lands during the military campaigns of the 19th century,” say Sickert and Castillo. In the documentary, a young Mapuche academic embarks upon a journey along the different paths followed by their ancestors 100 years ago after they were displaced from their lands.
Breaking the Brick arrives at Sunny Side hot on the heels of a successful Hot Docs Forum. Directed and produced by Carola Fuentes and Rafael Valdeavellano (La Ventana Cine) the project “contrasts two realities in Chile, a country demanding the neo-liberal model’s transformation through a new constitution,” as evidenced by “the unexpected shifts” in the stories of Mariana (50, a victim), and Ramiro (70, one of the privileged ones), both in the personal and national terms.
The Guardian of the Andes is described as “a journey to the past” in which children within the Inca Empire were sacrificed in the highest peaks of America to be “guardians of abundance.” This was known as the Capacocha ceremony. The documentary, directed by Fernando Garabedian and produced by Fernando Acuña, Gonzalo Argandoña, and Alex Eduardo Córdova, takes this story and transforms it into a journey through Peru and Chile, seeking to reveal the secrets of the Capacocha ceremony.
