Chile arrives at CPH:DOX 2024 where Oasis, the latest film from the MAFI collective, is in selection following its world bow in Berlin Forum. Additionally, the project Unwelcomed, Amilcar Films’ debut doc, will be presented at CPH:WIP. “The presence of Chilean documentaries at events like CPH:DOX demonstrates the growing interest in the Nordic countries and worldwide in our country’s creative industry,” says ProChile’s Catalin Butnariu.
Also attending the CPH:DOX market will be the company Errante Producciones, which is developing the projects Burning Daddy and Breaking Words. Burning Daddy is directed by Tana Gilbert (Malqueridas, 2023), while Breaking Words is Eloisa Silva’s debut feature film, and which addresses the issue of trans adolescence.
The Chilean delegation at CPH:DOX deleation includes Paola Castillo, producer of Errante; Amilcar Infante and Sebastian Gonzalez, director and producer at Amilcar Films; Diego Pino Anguita, deputy director of Chiledoc, which promotes Chilean documentaries worldwide and coordinates the activities of Chileans present at CPH:DOX. Tamara Uribe, co-director of the film Oasis, will also attend the festival and market.
“This is the second opportunity we will attend this market in person, and we are very pleased with how the Chilean presence has solidified in just one year. CPH:DOX is an indispensable industry space for documentaries worldwide, particularly in Europe, and it was still pending in our internationalization work, which was strange because the type of cinema and themes it promotes are directly connected to what happens with national production,” says Diego Pino, deputy director of Chiledoc.
Adds Catalin Butnariu, commercial representative at ProChile in Sweden and the Nordic countries: “The presence of Chilean documentaries at events like CPH:DOX demonstrates the growing interest in the Nordic countries and worldwide in our country’s creative industry. Chile has already had a consistent presence in the last editions of this festival, premiering several documentaries that were able to reach the rest of Europe and, in particular, the Nordic countries from Copenhagen, diversifying markets where co-productions and financing for the national creative industries sector can be secured.”
“The projects brought to CPH:DOX by the production companies Errante and Amilcar Films were part of the industry meeting Conecta 2023. We hope that the connections initiated there can be resumed in this market. At Chiledoc, our task is to support them in all necessary connections with these and other agents in the global film industry, to propel them in the best possible way towards their internationalization,” adds Diego Pino.
Oasis, which screens in the Urgent Matters sidebar, is a collectively constructed documentary portraying how Chile chooses to write a New Constitution after an unprecedented social uprising. A colourful assembly will be in charge of writing down the dreams of dignity and social justice of an entire nation. What could go wrong?
Oasis recently premiered in the Forum section of the Berlinale and is now making its Danish debut at CPH:DOX. The film is directed by Tamara Uribe and Felipe Morgado and produced by Alba Gaviraghi and Diego Pino Anguita.
MAFI is a filmmaking collective dedicated to the collaborative, observational, and territorial creation and teaching of documentary cinema since 2012. Previously, they premiered Propaganda and God, which also addresses themes such as politics, society, current affairs, the environment, and human rights, at Visions Du Reél.
Amilcar Films will participate in the CPH:WIP industry section, presenting its project Unwelcomed (Si vas para Chile). The film is currently at first cut stage and seeking co-production, alternatives for post-production, and sales agents to begin working on premiere and distribution strategies.
Directed by Amilcar Infante and Sebastián González, and produced by Sebastián González and Esteban Sandoval, the film addresses the migration crisis. It focuses on one of the most noteworthy demonstrations in Chile in 2021, marked by a violent anti-immigrant march in the north of the country, where tents and family belongings were burned. These images traveled the world, but not the stories of those affected. This choral documentary is described as a living testimony of those who continue to enter despite the adversities and of those local inhabitants who live amid an escalating social conflict, the harshness of the Atacama Desert, and the Andean highlands.
“It is a milestone for our project to have been selected for CPH:WIP alongside five other documentaries from around the world. It is an important platform for exposure to international industry agents, where we hope to establish alliances, secure financing, and explore distribution opportunities,” says Sebastián González, producer at Amilcar Films.
More Chilean Projects at CPH:DOX
The projects Burning Daddy (Papito Corazón) and Breaking Words (Rompiendo Palabras), from Paola Castillo’s production house Errante, are also coming to the CPH:DOX market.
The first, Burning Daddy (Papito Corazón), is directed by Tana Gilbert and produced by Paola Castillo and Dirk Manthey. The same team world premiered Malqueridas at the International Critics’ Week in Venice, the first Chilean documentary selected for this section, where it won three major awards.
In Burning Daddy (Papito Corazón), director Tana Gilbert and her family embark on the reconstruction of her own story as well as that of Fernando, Tana’s father. With memories fragmented by the violence he exerted over the family for years, photographs held captive for a decade, and judicial records, we attempt to approach him imaginatively, weaving the complex fabric of post-dictatorship and neoliberal Chilean fatherhood. Burning Daddy creates a new, distorted family album and challenges the fragmentation of a wounded memory.
The Paola Castillo production Breaking Words (Rompiendo Palabras) is the debut film by director Eloísa Silva Valderrama. The project was selected in 2023 to participate in the “Pitch The Whickers” event held at the industry meeting Conecta. There, it met representatives from the audiovisual sector in Europe and North America, with whom they hope to resume conversations in this market.
In Breaking Words, Valderrama tackles a sensitive and timely topic: transgender adolescence. The documentary follows four transgender adolescents who, for a year, take part in artistic workshops, leaving traces in what they create of their family pain, self-esteem issues, and uncertainties about the future. With letters written to their parents, watercolor self-portraits, and utopian worlds created with cut-outs, they reveal a deep intimacy on their way to self-love. In a concluding animation workshop in which their childhood photos are used, they will have the chance to reconcile with their identity.
