Chilean filmmakers’ embassy draws attention at FICG

7 octubre, 2021

By Zeta Tijuana
OCTOBER 5, 201.

Zapopan, Jalisco.- Not officially the guest country, Chile arrived at the 36th Guadalajara International Film Festival with an embassy of over 50 professionals, showing 19 films, and multiple projects, drawing attention to its bet, critical eye, film construction, unity, and steady pace when sharing identities, interests and common languages.

Making its way through the largest Latin-American film party, Chile has taken over several market and industry sections, with titles like “The sky is red” (documentary), and Claudia Huaiquimilla’s last movie, “My brothers dream awake”, besides competing for the Rigo Mora Award with the animation short film “Beast and the bones”, winner at Venice Film Festival; not forgetting its participation at the Coproduction Meeting.

Concerning its participation, Jorge O’Ryan, ProChile’s general director, points that for its size within the audiovisual industry, FICG is a crucial event for Chile, as this year looks to broaden and deepen our producing companies and their fiction, documentary, and/or animation productions’ presence in this market, networking and linking Chilean industry at DocuLab, Guadalajara Builds, or the Coproduction Meeting.

On the other hand, Constanza Arena from CinemaChile added: “As the sectorial brand for the entire Chilean audiovisual sector in fiction, documentary, and animation, in both feature, short and episodic format, we have been building a bond for over 12 years with the festival. This bond was founded on collaborative work, with particular attention to our filmography.”

Standing out at the Iberoamerican Feature Film category are titles like “Inmersion”, directed by Nicolás Postiglione; “To kill the beast”, directed by Agustina San Martín; “Dusk Stone”, directed by Ivan Fund; and “My brothers dream awake”, directed by Claudia Huaiquimilla. “My brothers dream awake” had its premiere at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland. In the Iberoamerican Documentary category; “The sky is red” (Francina Carbonell); and three short films selected for the Iberoamerican Short Film; “An impossible love story”, directed by Javier Mardones; “I dreamed I was alive”, directed by Sebastián González; and “A house in the sand”, directed by Cristóbal García.

Chilean animation cinema are represented by “Uninhabited” (Camila Donoso); “Beast” (Hugo Covarrubias); and “The bones” (Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña), with subjects underlining a diverse and the consolidation of its industry. With them is “Nidal”, a documentary showing how the real estate industry has destabilized the natural surroundings of Chile’s coast, forcing inhabitants to survive. This movie has joined “FILM4CLIMATE”, a project aimed at raising awareness on climate change through cinema and its production.

With notorious participation, the Chilean film embassy has also drawn attention at FICG with its proposals at the Coproduction Meeting, with projects like “Ahora vienen por nosotros”, “Animals”, “Giraffes”, “The white room”, and “Volver a casa”, as well as the documentary “Under suspicion”, directed by Daniel Díaz, at Doculab: Documentaries Laboratory; “El baile de los que sobran”, by Angel Linares and Emilio Aguilar at Episode 0: Developing series; not forgetting “History and Geography”’s first cut, directed by Bernardo Quesney and present at Guadalajara Builds, where it’s looking for funding.