• Seven works will be part of Hot Docs’ Made in Chile, dedicated to exhibiting Chilean productions, with a highlight on social issues’ movies.
• Gabriel, a co-production focusing on president Gabriel Boric, will be part of Forum, the most important financing focus of the event.
Check the HOT DOCS CATALOGUE 2022 here.
Between 28th April and 9th May, the Canada International Film Festival Hot Docs’ 29th version will take place in Toronto, the largest in North America. This year 226 documentaries from 63 countries –among them Chile, in which the Festival focuses this year- will be exhibited.
Julieta Brodsky Hernández, Minister of Cultures, Arts, and Patrimony, comments: “Chilean participation at Hot Docs has a double significance. Due to the pandemic, it marks the return of on-site national delegations at festivals and international markets in opposition to online participation. It covers a genre our country has created a lot of buzz about. As Ministry of Culture, we are committed to supporting those representing us in these spaces, as we hope they become more fruitful, opening new horizons for the documentary industry”.
On the other hand, Paula Ossandón, director of Chiledoc, sectorial brand for Chilean documentary, says: “It was a pleasant surprise the festival’s initiative to make a Made In Chile, in which we will have seven exceptional films that show how our documentary is positioned in the world. These seven films show diversity, great artistic quality and depth of content. Also, we will have a co-production project selected in the Forum, an essential market instance. In addition, a great delegation of producers will go in search of business and new alliances. This is a great moment for our documentary cinema”.
On Suspicion: Zokunentu
On Wednesday, Hot Docs announced its program and movies selected to be part of Made in Chile. Feature films On Suspicion: Zokunentu, Meeting Point, Desert Space, Alis, Primera, and the short movie Corrupted, will be exhibited on-site in the presence of their directors. The Oscar-nominated Chilean documentary The mole agent will be shown online.
Shane Smith, Hot Docs’ programming director, pointed out that “when the time to choose a country for this year’s Made In spotlight came, Chile was at the top of the list. We knew there was talent, that movies were being made there, and that those stories produced deserved to be seen at the festival”.
Two feature films will have their world premiere at the event: On Suspicion: Zokunentu and Point of encounter. The short movie Corrupt will be premiering at the festival too.
On Suspicion: Zokunentu, directed by Daniel Díaz Oyarzún and produced by Esteban Sandoval and Felipe Poblete, goes through the director’s family records and his uncle’s works Mapuche visual artist Bernardo Oyarzún who in the 90s was often arrested under suspicion. The film looks at identity and racial stigma. “We are looking forward to reaching people’s hearts everywhere, and we know there are similarities between Chile and Canada in the relationship each nation has built with indigenous people. This was always important when dreaming about places where we could have our worldwide premiere”, the filmmakers comment.
Meeting Point, directed by Roberto Baeza and produced by Paulina Costa and Alfredo García, won the VOSTAO award at Cannes’ Marché du Film’s last edition. In it, two filmmakers try to reconstruct what their parents lived at a torture center 45 years ago. “It is a great honor to be part of Hot Docs program and recognition of the film we have worked in for so many years. We know the festival brings large audiences, and we are very excited because of that. We are anxious to know how the audience will react to the movie”, Paulina Costa, one of the film’s producers, comments.
Meeting Point
Corrupted is another world premiere, a short film directed by Juan Cifuentes Mera, and produced by Joaquín Tapia Ross, Rodrigo Díaz, and Margarita Egaña, picturing a little-known reality in Chile. It tells the story of Andrea in 15 minutes, a young woman who, after having lost her memory because of electroshock therapy, tries to rebuild her past, looking for her former self. “We hope this work can be a tool for the neurodivergent community and electroshock survivors, raising awareness on this,” the team behind comments.
Besides, three other movies will premiere at Hot Docs. Desert Space, directed by Terko Ravlic and produced by Michel Toledo; Alis, a co-production directed by Nicolas van Hemelryck and Clare Weiskopf and jointly produced by Alexandra Galvis and Radu Stancy; and Primera, directed by Vee Bravo, and produced by Kevin Lopez and Catherine Gund. All these productions will have an on-site exhibition, followed by Q&As. The Mole Agent, directed by Maite Alberdi and produced by Marcela Santibáñez, will only be exhibited online.
“The combination of these films delivers a diverse and fascinating regard at life in Chile, and the stylistic varieties and narrative approaches documentary makers are taking”, states Hot Docs’ Shane Smith.
President Boric will be part of a documentary on the Canadien market.
Hot Docs’ Forum is a space for projects trying to make their way into the North American industry, and this year, a Chilean co-production is part of the official selection.
Gabriel, directed by Daniel Carsenty and produced by Nicklas Krüger, Laia Gonzalez, and Ingrid Bragemann, is a German, US, and Chilean co-production. The movie is about the current Chilean president Gabriel Boric and the political changes the country is undergoing. It pictures a Chile filled with hope, focusing on Apruebo Dignidad’s first year of government and the Constituents Assembly’s outcome. “When Europe is stricken by war, Chile has chosen a progressive government. Young people around the world are following this story”, Carsenty comments.
Gabriel
The on-site mission at Canada’s Hot Doc’s festival and market is financed by the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Patrimony, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Cultural Issues Office, and organized by Chiledoc.
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