{"id":2430,"date":"2021-07-14T16:46:20","date_gmt":"2021-07-14T20:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chiledoc.cl\/en\/?p=2430"},"modified":"2021-07-14T16:46:20","modified_gmt":"2021-07-14T20:46:20","slug":"cannes-marche-chileans-document-their-political-past-and-present","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chiledoc.cl\/en\/cannes-marche-chileans-document-their-political-past-and-present\/","title":{"rendered":"Cannes March\u00e9: Chileans document their political past and present"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Business Doc Europe<\/a>
\nJULY 11, 2021<\/p>\n

The Chilean doc scene is blossoming in the wake of Maite Alberdi\u2019s Oscar nomination for The Mole Agent. That is the message from Constanza Arena, the director of promotional agency, CinemaChile. In spite of the travel restrictions placed on Latin Americans because of the pandemic, Arena has made it to the Cannes market. Six Chilean producers are also in town.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation is not easy down there [in South America]. It\u2019s winter. Numbers are complicated. Frontiers are really tough, to let you both out and in,\u201d the CinemaChile boss notes of how Covid is continuing to blight the region. Nonetheless, she was determined to travel to the festival.<\/p>\n

After a year and a half of \u201cabsolute confinement \u201c and \u201cvery difficult moments for the industry,\u201d Arena felt it was crucial for a country like Chile to reach out again to its global partners. Her organisation exists to put the country\u2019s cinema, in all its guises, in the international shop window. Its slogan, \u201cMaking Chilean films global,\u201d says as much. <\/p>\n

Local producers are always looking to co-produce and co-finance their projects. With a relatively small domestic market of their own, they have to think beyond national borders. That\u2019s why Cannes matters.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically our job here is to say we are active, we are alive, we have plenty of films,\u201d Arena states. \u201cI needed to see the festival. I needed to speak to the sales [agents], financiers and distributors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Docs remain a strong part of Chile\u2019s international push. Underlining the new vitality of the documentary sector, Oscar-winning director Sebasti\u00e1n Lelio has come aboard as producer on Cristi\u00e1n Leighton\u2019s new feature documentary El Porvenir de la Mirada, a hard-hitting account of the anti-government protests in Chile in 2019. The upheaval led to the writing of a new constitution that, hopefully, will bring to an end forever the era of unaccountable dictators. The co-producer is Gabriela Sandoval from Storyboard Media.<\/p>\n

Other docs recently completed, or in the works, include co-productions such as Swedish filmmakers Lars Edman and William Johansson Kal\u00e9n\u2019s Arica, about the consequences of a Swedish mining giant dropping hazardous waste in northern Chile, and Cristian Grez Donoso\u2019s new feature doc Eternal Struggle, which weaves together moments in Chile\u2019s history with the events during the recent social uprising.<\/p>\n

It is clear that the uprising in Santiago in the autumn of 2019 (the protest movement known as the Estallido Social) has inspired many young documentary makers. Among the recent films touching on the subject include Cristian Perez\u2019s Fixed Shots \u2013 100 Recordings Around Dignity Square and October Is All by DM Tellier and IQ Tellier. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, filmmakers also continue to rake over the traumas of the Pinochet years. Another new film, Pablo Perelman\u2019s Testimonies For The Centenary Of Gabriel Vald\u00e9s, concerns a political, lawyer and diplomat celebrated for standing up against the notorious dictator. <\/p>\n

Less than six months after travelling to LA for the Oscars, Maite Alberdi is already editing a new feature doc. Arena is keeping the details under wraps for now but the project should be ready soon.<\/p>\n

She is nevertheless convinced that Alberdi\u2019s Oscar nomination has given a significant boost to the doc sector, just as the nominations and awards won by Lelio and Pablo Larrain encouraged filmmakers in the fictional world. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn my experience, almost 11 years at CinemaChile, there is an unconscious phenomenon that, whenever a national [a local filmmaker] gets to the big leagues, the young ones that come behind feel that the road is there \u2013 they can aspire and [have the ambition] for the big leagues also\u2026now with documentary, I feel this is the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

For producers, financiers and organisations like CinemaChile itself, she suggests, success breeds success. They all learn just what is needed to get a film into the international marketplace \u2013 how to sell and promote it and how to get it seen. It\u2019s about more than just making a good movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease expect Chile to be present in Locarno, Venice, San Sebastian because we are strong this year in both features and documentaries,\u201d Arena strikes a determinedly optimistic note. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Business Doc Europe JULY 11, 2021 The Chilean doc scene is blossoming in the wake of Maite Alberdi\u2019s Oscar nomination for The Mole Agent. That is the message from Constanza Arena, the director of promotional agency, CinemaChile. In spite of the travel restrictions placed on Latin Americans because of the pandemic, Arena has made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chiledoc.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2430"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chiledoc.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chiledoc.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chiledoc.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chiledoc.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chiledoc.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2432,"href":"https:\/\/www.chiledoc.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2430\/revisions\/2432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chiledoc.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chiledoc.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chiledoc.cl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}