Download the dossier Chile en Dok Leipzig 2022.
The International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film Festival (DOK Leipzig) will be held from October 17th to the 23rd. In this current edition, Chilean participation stands out with the selection of Chaos Eclipse in the Dok Preview Training and the presence of eleven other documentaries in different stages of development that will be part of the prestigious event’s market.
In addition, the oldest European film festival will receive a Chilean delegation composed of seven filmmakers, including Chiledoc’s Executive Director, Flor Rubina.
For more than 60 years, DOK Leipzig has received documentary and animation films from all over the world. This unique genre combination attracts more than 40.000 visitors to Leipzig each year. «Throughout its trajectory, there has been a very prolific relationship between the Festival and Chile. Chilean documentaries have had a consistent presence in this event for more than four decades. We have even been the focus country in one of its editions,» says Flor Rubina, Executive Director of Chiledoc in Leipzig.
Dok Preview Training
The Chilean-Spanish co-production, Chaos Eclipse, directed by Dubi Cano and Samantha Cabrera and produced by Kamila Véliz, is part of Pitch Training. This official section seeks to showcase films that are in their final stages of production and present them to festival programmers, sales agents, and distributors.
The documentary, made under the wing of the production company houses Sapiensapiens Films and Mimbre Films, narrates how the arrival of an eclipse opens a portal to the childhood of five cousins in the cold Chilean countryside. Together with the directors, their adventures in nature will bring out the nostalgia for a lost childhood, the contemplation of the imposing landscape, the harshness of the territory, and the threat of a pandemic that never quite arrives.
Videolibrary
In addition, Chile has five completed documentaries in the Videolibrary Section of DOK Leipzig, which functions as an excellent showcase for different professionals in the documentary industry worldwide. «Being in the Videolibrary is a huge opportunity for documentaries. It broadens the possibilities of obtaining selections in other festivals, platforms, or even sales to TV channels,» explains Flor Rubina.
Breaking the Brick, directed and produced by Carola Fuentes and Rafa Valdeavellano, both filmmakers at La Ventana Cine, is one of the documentaries part of Videolibrary. In the most neoliberal country in the world, millions of Chileans rise up in a popular revolt to challenge the theories of Milton Friedman imposed by the Pinochet dictatorship. In an unforgettable year for humanity, two Chileans from very different social classes will undergo an unexpected transformation.
Also available in this section is Olympic Village, directed by Sebastian Kohan Esquenazi and produced by Juan Pablo Sallato, Juan Ignacio Sabatini, Mercedes Córdova, Valeria Forster, and Inti Cordera. Villano Producciones, Brava Cine, and La Maroma are the production company houses involved in this co-production between Chile, Argentina, and Mexico. The film, placed in Mexico in the 70s, portrays a Village composed of 30 buildings inhabited by 5.000 people, of which 3.000 are South American exiles. Later, in the 90s, with the parents’ return to the south, the children start their exile: they have to leave everything behind and start over.
Other of the already premiered films part of the section is On Suspicion: Zokunentu, directed by Daniel Díaz Oyarzún and produced by Esteban Sandoval, Felipe Poblete y Cristian Mellado, from the production companies Pejeperro Films, Eskama Audiovisual, and Pikun Films. This Chilean production narrates an arrest on suspicion in 1998, which motivated the artist and uncle of the director, Bernardo Oyarzún, to portray himself as a «delinquent,» evidencing through racial stigmas his own indigenous identity. His artistic career opens the question about ‘being Mapuche in the city’ and how the roots can be recovered in the present.
The short films Corrupted, directed by Juan Cifuentes Mera and produced by Joaquín Tapia Ross, Rodrigo Díaz, and Margarita Egaña, under the production company house Parina Films; and Vertical Shadow, directed by Felipe Elgueta and Ananke Pereira, and produced by Catalina Vergara from Globo Rojo Films, are also in this section. The first narrates how Andrea tries to reconstruct her past as she searches for her former self after losing her memory to electroshock therapy. The second one, Vertical Shadow, is a visual round trip to the heart of a concrete monster that houses thousands of people from different countries in the context of the biggest migration crisis that Chile has faced in decades. The spectators go through the intimacy of the immigrant inhabitants through a mosaic in static shots on crowded surfaces, but also in pieces of hyperconnected reality during the time of pandemic confinement.
Projects Films
In the projects section, filmmakers of six documentaries in different stages of development are present at the DOK Leipzig market. «The delegates will aim to schedule meetings with the professionals present at the market, but it is also crucial that they take part in panels, debates, and masterclasses that the event offers as these are exciting instances to learn and to meet producers from other latitudes,» explains Rubina.
The Chilean projects participating are Alien Island, directed by Cristóbal Valenzuela and produced by Diego Breit and Sarah Pennacchi; A Bastard and Pinochet’s Legacy, directed by Pepe Rovano and produced by Kamila Véliz, Catalina Donoso, Stefano Tealdi, and Andreas Rocksén; Huemules River directed by Pette Txipi, who also produces next to Erasmo Salas, Baptiste Soulat and Laurent Pribat; Transvestite Odyssey, directed by Nicolás Videla, who also produces next to Nicole Bonilla and Kevin Magne; Sentinels, directed by Rosario Jiménez-Gili and produced by Gastón Chedufau Sosa; and Winter Solstices directed by Cristian Valle Celedón, who also produces next Christel Andler Celedón and Denisse Castillo Cid.
Chiledoc is a public-private alliance between the Chilean Documentary Corporation CCDoc and ProChile, subject to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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