Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

Chile
Raúl Ruiz. Ó NICOLASGUERIN/AZIMUTSPRODUCTION/
CORBIS.
Sebastián Alarcón’s (b. 1949) resistance to the regime
found visual expression in Noch nad Chile (Night over
Chile, 1977, Soviet Union), a film about the first days of
the dictatorship, denouncing the atrocities it committed
in the National Stadium. Later, Miguel Littin’s Acta
general de Chile (General Proclamation of Chile), edited
in Spain, offered a clandestine portrayal of the social
reality under the dictatorship in 1986.
One of the achievements of filmmaking under the
Popular Unity government, with its emphasis on women’s
political participation and the use of 16mm, was
the emergence of women behind the camera. Marta
Harnecker, a member of Guzmán’s Grupo Tercer Cine,
helped to edit The Battle of Chile in Cuba. Angelina
Vásquez shared her reflections on torture, rape, and
pregnancy in Thanks to Life, orThe Story of a Mistreated
Woman (Finland, 1980). Valeria Sarmiento (b. 1948),
who has edited many of Raúl Ruiz’s films, directed her
own documentary on the culture of machismo in Costa
Rica, El Hombre cuando es hombre (A Man, When He Is a
Man, 1982), followed by the parodic feature Notre
Mariage (Our marriage, France, 1984), and other works.
In Canada, Marilú Mallet (b. 1944) produced an autobiographical
reflection on exile, Journal inachevé
(Unfinished diary, 1982); after returning to Chile in
2003, she made a documentary on women who were
‘‘widowed’’ by Pinochet’s coup, La Cueca sola (To
Dance Alone).
The national film industry and supportive arts
organizations in Chile, once highly dependent on state
funding during Popular Unity, were severely damaged by
its elimination. Many filmmakers took refuge in the
alternative media of video and television, sponsored by
universities, religious groups, and nongovernmental
organizations. Videotapes became instruments of political
and cultural resistance and circulated widely, even if
distribution was prohibited. By means of symbolism,
allegory, and other indirect methods, the theater group
Ictus transmitted political messages on video. Another
group, Teleanalysis, produced news programs documenting
important political and historical events as an alternative
to the military government’s mass media coverage.
The television director Tatiana Gaviola (b. 1956) managed
to make a testimonial documentary, Tantas vidas,
una historia (So Many Lives, One Story, 1983), on poor
women in the Ochagavia slum, which circulated internationally
on video. Silvio Caiozzi (b. 1944) was among the
few directors to consistently produce feature-length films
after the coup. In 1977 Caiozzi directed Julio comienza en
Julio ( Julio Begins in July), voted ‘‘the Chilean movie of
the century,’’ which focuses on the decline of the Chilean
aristocracy in the early 1900s to make a subtle critique of
the contemporary oppressive regime. His Coronación
(Coronation, 2000) brought him the Best Director award
at the 2002 Montreal World Film Festival.
Others who chose to remain in Chile fought against
the cultural blackout and the amnesia that reigned in
Chile, both during and after the dictatorship. They strove
to end the so-called ‘‘internal exile’’ by giving meaning to
the lives of Chileans who had been alienated from participating
in the national project. Representative films
include Imagen latente (Latent Image, 1988), by Pablo
Perelman, and La Frontera (The Frontier, 1991), by
Ricardo P. Larrain, shown at the Museum of Modern
Art in New York as part of the exhibition Internal Exile:
New Films and Videos from Chile, curated by Coco
Fusco in May 1990. This touring exhibit was instrumental
in providing international exposure to the cultural
resurgence that prefigured the fall of the Pinochet regime.
Following the end of the dictatorship in 1989, the
film industry began recovering through a very slow and
irregular process, aided by subventions from government
organizations such as Fondo Nacional para el Desarrollo
de las Artes (FONDART) and CORFO. Many filmmakers
returned from exile and faced the complexities
of reintegration. Littin’s Los náufragos (The Shipwrecked,
1994) examines the experience of an exile who returns to
Chile after twenty years and attempts to assimilate himself
back into a society divided by the trauma of the
268 SCHIRMER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM