NIGHT OVER CHILE

The 32nd Moscow International Film Festival held a retrospective of modern Chilean cinema devoted to the “Chilean New Wave”. For many people it was an opportunity to discover one of the biggest cinema industries in Latin America.

We decided to call this year’s retrospective, which continues to acquaint the audience with the cinema of this country, “Night over Chile”. It includes works of the 70’s and 80’s dealing with the gloomy period in the history of the country and its cinema. Hundreds of people fell victim to the dictatorship. Many disappeared, many were physically eliminated. Chilean cinema almost ceased to exist inside the country, many filmmakers left Chile for many years and created “Chilean cinema in emigration”.

Restored copies were generously given to us by the Chilean Cinematheque. Documentary and feature films offer an account of the political and social atmosphere in the country at the time of tumult. Some of them will be screened in Russia for the first time.

The retrospective includes the movie “The Promised Land” by Miguel Littin. It is not directly related to the time of the dictatorship, but it resonates with the period and in the form of a poetical ballade describes the struggle and pains of Chilean people who, in the beginning of the past century, attempted to establish a socialist republic, speaks of their tenacity and lust for freedom.

The harsh tragic movie by Sebastian Alarcon (it was made during his emigration years at Mosfilm in collaboration with Alexander Kosarev) provided the name of the retrospective. Precisely and realistically it reconstructs the events of September, 1973, when military dictatorship headed by Augusto Pinochet came to power. At the 10th MIFF it received a special prize for the best directorial debut. The screening of the movie as part of the retrospective is our homage to Sebastian Alarcon, a remarkable master and a big friend of the Moscow Film Festival.

During the years of terror many people disappeared without a trace. Two works in the retrospective address this issue – “Latent Image” by Pablo Perelman and “Missing Prisoners” by Sergio M. Castilla (produced by Sweden and Cuba).

“The Chinese Shoe” by Cristi?n S?nchez, filmed at the height of the dictatorship, recreates the complicated tumultuous atmosphere of the time.

The retrospective of the Chilean Cinematheque also includes two documentaries by Ignacio Ag?ero. The first one “Don’t Forget” is about women looking for their husbands who went missing a few days before the military coup. Their bodies were later discovered in a limestone quarry. The second one “One Hundred Children Waiting for a Train” is about children living on the fringes of the town who despite their hard existence can see the joy of life and discover the magic world of cinema.

Evgenia Tirdatova

The press office +7 (999) 740-34-42
11 bld. 1, Maly Kozikhinsky lane, Moscow, 123001, Russia
Moscow International Film Festival, © 2023