The Chilean presence at CPH:DOX may have been relatively small in 2023 but Chiledoc Deputy Director Flor Rubina is hopeful that this will increase significantly over the coming years after having observed public and industry-facing activities in Copenhagen this week.
Three Chilean films screened at CPH:DOX this year; Maite Alberdi’s Sundance hit The Eternal Memory (Highlights); My Imaginary Country by Patricio Guzmán and the world premiere of the short film The Departing Images, by Ana Edwards.
Right now Chiledoc sends delegations to the fests of Sheffield, Cannes and Hot Docs, with attendance at the Sunny Side market as well. Deputy Director Flor Rubina hopes to persuade the government back home to add CPH:DOX to the list of “priority” events.
“We hope this first on-site encounter will help to explore the possibilities of new co-productions and motivate the co-operation between Latin America and Europe,” she says. She adds that she was particularly impressed by what she saw at Forum, and can see how the Danish fest and market can help Chilean producers “get closer to northern European countries and to start more co-productions.”
The CPH:DOX 2023 Chilean delegation included the production house Tres Tercios, whose Asteroid 2518, directed by Amanda Rutllant and produced by Ignacia Merino and Simón Vargas, is at editing stage. Their other project is Ilustration Zone, directed by David Guzmán and Diego Breit and produced by Ignacia Merino, Pablo Arias, and Simón Vargas.
The second company within the Chilean delegation was from Galgo Storytelling with two projects; In the Shade of Light, in post-production, directed by Ignacia Merino and Isabel Reyes and Knowing Your Nature, in development, and directed by Francisca Silva.
Rubina confirmed that minority co-production support for docs is available for international projects and that Chile has co-pro agreements with Brasil, Argentina, Belgium, Venezuela, France, Germany, Italy and Canada. Further support is available to productions looking to shoot in Chile, even from countries without a co-pro agreement in place.
Rubina further spoke about Maite Alberdi who was nominated for the Doc Oscar for The Mole Agent in 2021, and is one of the country’s major cinema exports. She is a director who has given Chilean film much international “visibilty,” says Rubina.
“She is contemporary. And the topics that she touches are much different to the ones that we used to be famous for, such as the military coup d’état of 1973 [the 50th anniversary of which the country acknowledges this year] and human rights,” says Rubina.
That said, Alberdi’s latest film The Eternal Memory pays more than passing reference to this particularly poignant aspect of Chile’s recent past.
“It’s a big moment for Chile,” she says. “Maite’s new film is a love story of two people and Alzheimer’s disease which touches on memory, because one of the characters [Augusto Góngora] was very relevant during the dictatorship for his journalism.” In the film, even as Góngora’s memory diminishes, his recall of the atrocities committed under Pinochet’s rule to retain their sharpness and clarity.
“You can very much relate The Eternal Memory to this 50-year anniversary,” Rubina underlined.
