● The Eternal Memory, by Maite Alberdi, will be exhibited in the World Showcase section of North America’s most important documentary film festival.
● The projects In The Shadow Of Light, Knowing Your Nature, Lonko, a Journey to the Roots, Synchrony, The Digger of Secrets, and The Snowy Winter in the South, will participate in the Hot Docs market.
● Meanwhile, at The Doc Shop, the event’s video library, the films participating are Alien Island, Breaking the Brick, Edita, So Filthy and So Happy, and Soul Beats, where they have the opportunity to be seen by industry representatives from around the world.
● See our Press Kit! Chilean Documentaries at Hot Docs 2023
For several years, the Chilean documentary sector has stood out for the participation of many women in the production role. In that sense, it is no wonder that an all-female delegation will land at Hot Docs 2023, from April 27 to May 7, in Toronto, Canada. The delegates will participate in the different market and networking activities that the festival has for the documentary industry.
Also remarkable is the incredible diversity and thematic richness of the projects that the eight delegates are taking to this important non-fiction film event: stories about the environment, native peoples, superwomen who fight against the most adverse conditions to achieve their goals and survive, stories that reflect deep social problems and political catastrophes in the country.
In addition, the successful documentary The Eternal Memory by Maite Alberdi will have its Canadian premiere in the World Showcase section, which reunites a selection of the year’s best premieres. In addition to this, Chilean presence at The Doc Shop with five Chilean feature documentary films in this essential commercial showcase
The Eternal Memory
The Chilean projects
● In The Shadow Of Light, directed by Isabel Reyes and Ignacia Merino and produced by María José Díaz and Francisca Barraza. Production companies Dos Be Producciones, Galgo Storytelling, and Funky Films. Currently in the post-production stage, this film portrays a small rural town in Chile where peasant life coexists with the electrical structure that supplies energy to the rest of the country. Amid the darkness, the threatening presence of the large machinery industry of an unequal system.
● Knowing Your Nature, directed by Francisca Silva and produced by Maria José Díaz and Isidora Fajardo. Production company Galgo Storytelling. This project is a series of ten episodes in Mixed Reality, which places the user in different landscapes of the native forest of southern Chile. Users can learn and exercise basic mindfulness tools to improve their mental health. Currently in the development stage.
● Lonko, a Journey to the Roots, directed by Jota Loyola and produced by Juan Ramírez. Production company La Ventana Cine. After the death of a renowned Lonko, a Mapuche leader, his children María, José, and Adán must decide who will continue with the leadership of their community and recover their ancestral lands usurped by the Chilean State. It is currently in production.
● Synchrony, directed by Caro Blog and produced by Claudia León and Sebastián Lavados. Production Company Faro Cine. This story, currently in post-production, portrays an islander who plunges into the open sea, swimming with sea lions and hugging her freedom. The swimmer dives into the icy glacial waters and polar currents to the limit of her endurance. A sensory immersion in the lives of two women and their relationship of pleasure and pain with water.
● The Digger of Secrets, directed by Patricio Pereira and María Elena Wood and produced by Patricio Pereira, María Elena Wood, Andrea Insunza and Javier Ortega. Production company Maria Wood Producciones. Currently in the production stage, this feature film follows the pursuit for justice of a man who dedicated his life to unraveling the darkest secrets about how and why the United States, the champion of freedom and democracy, supported the dictator who persecuted and murdered thousands of people, including his friends.
● The Snowy Winter in the South, directed by Sebastián Vidal and produced by Sebastián Vidal and Sebastián Lavados. Production company Faro Cine. This feature film, which is currently in the editing stage, portrays that in the southernmost region of Chile, amid nature as cruel as it is overwhelming, a handful of villagers, together with their dogs and livestock, survive in an increasingly hostile land.
Chilean delegation
Every year, the Ministry of Cultures, Arts, and Heritage (MINCAP) supports the attendance of production company houses and producers to the Hot Docs market. To this end, MINCAP calls for proposals, which, this time, selected four production companies and their projects to attend Toronto, a mission led by Chiledoc, the organization that represents Chilean documentaries in the world and whose representative in Toronto will be Paola Castillo, the organization’s deputy director.
The delegates selected by MINCAP are María José Díaz from Galgo Storytelling, Carola Fuentes from La Ventana Cine, María Elena Wood from María Wood Producciones, and Claudia León from Faro Cine.
Also part of the delegation is Rocío Jadue from Fabula, one of the producers behind The Eternal Memory, whose director, Maite Alberdi, will also be at the festival. And finally, Carola Robino, producer of BBC Mundo.
The Doc Shop
The important Hot Docs video library will also feature a variety of Chilean titles, touching on topics such as extraterrestrial beings that inhabit territories in southern Chile, social upheaval, biographies, and sound travels through the desert.
Alien Island, directed by Cristóbal Valenzuela and produced by Diego Breit of Glaciar Films, narrates the story of a group of people who, in the mid-80s, began to communicate by radio with mysterious characters with foreign accents who claimed to live on a particular «Friendship Island» in close relationship with an alien race. This is the starting point for one of the strangest cases in recent ufological history. On this path, truth and lies intersected, generating a delirious contemporary myth with thousands of followers that only seemed to be understood by exploring its main protagonist’s mind and enigmatic past.
Breaking the Brick, directed and produced by Carola Fuentes and Rafa Valdeavellano, filmmakers from La Ventana Cine. In the most neoliberal country in the world, millions of Chileans rise up in a popular revolt to defy the neoliberal theories imposed by the Pinochet dictatorship. In an unforgettable year for humanity, two Chileans from very different social strata will undergo an unexpected transformation.
Edita, directed by Pamela Pollak and produced by Carola Ojalvo, Cristobal Sotomayor, and Pamela Pollak, portrays Edita, one of the first women to study in the Bauhaus, part of the nazi resistance in the former Czechoslovakia and Chile, and a single mother. She was excluded from her family and labeled as crazy. This is the reconstruction of her story.
So Filthy and So Happy, directed by Wincy Oyarce and produced by Adriana Silva, portrays, through multiple audiovisual records, Hija de Perra, who turned her transvestism into political action, questioning sexual and gender identity.
Soul Beats, directed by Eduardo Bunster and produced by Claudia León, is a musical road trip documentary through the Atacama Desert in northern Chile—a journey with encounters with the sacred and the meaning of the drums.
About Chiledoc
We are the organization that represents Chilean documentaries in the world. We aim to promote these documentaries and talents internationally through participation in markets and festivals. We seek to boost the sector’s growth by creating and strengthening networks, constant diffusion, and promoting associative practices. We want to be «a collective force.»
Chiledoc is a public-private organization promoted by ProChile and the Chilean Documentary Corporation CCDoc.
internacional@chiledoc.cl
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