Chiledoc is out in force November 19 during IDFA Industry, as a delegation of doccers present a selection of upcoming features. IDFA also presents two Chilean world-premieres in 2020. The Sky Is Red plays in First Appearance while Arica is selected for Frontlight.
“We work as a collective brand [that] the majority of the documentary sector is behind, and we work for all the documentary workers,” stresses Diego Pino Anguita, Director of Chiledoc in an IDFA statement. “Our mission is also to create a platform that works to help new and experienced filmmakers and producers to promote their works, creating networking to commercialize our films.”
First Appearance selection The Sky Is Red concerns the fire at the San Miguel prison in Santiago, Chile, which left 81 inmates dead and for which nobody faced justice. Starting with a re-examination of the audiovisual evidence within the case, the documentary immerses us in the horror of that fateful morning and in the precariousness of the Chilean prison system.
In Frontlight’s Arica, Swedish directors Lars Edman and William Johansson Kalén return to the Chilean community beside which Swedish mining giant dumping hazardous waste in 1984. The company denied responsibility. Now survivors are seeking justice and the images from the filmmakers’ previous film Toxic Playground have become crucial evidence in continental Europe’s largest transnational corporate responsibility trial.
Best of Fest throws up the delightful and elegant (and multi award-winning) The Mole Agent by Maite Alberdi in which a retirement home receives a new resident in the form of a spy, sent to check on another resident. But he very soon touches their collective heart, just as they touch his.
Also in Best of Fests is Ana Edwards Mundo which observes how the landscape beside the Chilean-Bolivian border is reshaped through an elderly lady’s evangelical notions. The once revered natural world has been demoted in status; it is now regarded as a place dominated by the devil.
The Industry Meetup (15.00 Amsterdam time, 19 November) will present five new Chilean works at various stages.
In Ancacoy by María Paz González & Nicole Böck Dupont, after a cleaner at a college is beaten to death as she walks to work, her assaulters (who confessed to the crime) were tortured in a Chilean prison. An over-mediated case that reveals a circle of violence marked by discrimination, labour precariousness, xenophobia and social mobility.
In Pepe Rovano’s Bastard: the legacy of a criminal, a 35-year old man discovers that his biological father is guilty of crimes against humanity. He then embarks on an unexpected journey, deciding to live with the old man. It is a story of disobedience and rejection, the story of the son of a killer, and his attempt to repair the past.
In La fabulosa máquina de cosechar oro (The fabulous gold harvesting machine) by Alfredo Pourailly, Toto (62), the last gold digger in Tierra del Fuego, is severely damaged by his work, and feels close to death. But he can’t stop working as he is not qualified for social security. His cowboy son Jorge, therefore, designs a machine that should bring them a better future.
Tana Gilbert’s Malqueridas reveals women in prison as they reconstruct their experience of motherhood through videos and photographs captured with their forbidden cell phones while serving their sentences. Malqueridas offers a reflection on the severity of motherhood when faced with confinement, and the loss of affections.
Set against a backdrop of social protests, a world pandemic and major blazes, Nicolás Molina’s Pirópolis follows the heroic and hilarious firefighters of the 5th company of Valparaíso and question their role in the Chilean society.
IDFA Forum: DocLab Forum Extra Project
Ancestral Secret VR by Francisca Silva, María José Díaz. The ancestral wisdom of the Q’ero community of Peru joins VR to reveal its worldview. This is a magical journey that redefines the relationship between humanity and Mother Earth. Award: Best Digital Experiences Pitch, Sunnyside of the Doc 2020
IDFA Academy
Drifting Images by Nicolás Tabilo. Haunted by a childhood trauma, the director tries to recover the voice of a child who is lost at the mouth of a river looking for his mother.
At Docs for Sale Chiledoc presents Corrrespondence by Dominga Sotomayor and Carla Simóm, the multi award-winning The Other One (Francisco Bermejo), Frontier which is produced and directed by Paola Castillo, The Villa Project by Edison Cájas and Daniela Contreras, and Water Silhouettes, directed and produced by Violeta Paus.
