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Americas: Part 5

"In Women's Hands" This program set in Chile, examines the changes women of every social class made when they organized during the Pinochet years to create better living conditions for their families.

Chile, History, Latin America, Politics/Human Rights, Women's Studies

Ardiente Paciencia

A young man is in love with the daughter of a local bar owner in a Chilean village. The young man enlists the help of the famous poet Pablo Neruda to woo his beloved.

Biography, Chile, Drama, History

Casas de Pablo Neruda, Las

The collections of the poet, the world that surrounds his creative work. This film is an intimate tour of the three houses that Neruda built, accompanied by his words and presence

Chile, Literature

Caso Pinochet, El / The Pinochet Case

This film investigates the origins and development of the international legal prosecution of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. It explores how a small group of people in Madrid laid the groundwork for his arrest. After Pinochet’s arrest by Scotland Yard, the film follows the workings of the British legal system that ensued. The film also movingly incorporates the stories of many Chileans who traveled to Madrid to testify, including relatives of the “disappeared” and others who survived horrifying torture in secret prisons.

Chile, History, Politics/Human Rights, Social Issues

Chacotero Sentimental, El

This film centers around a young and eccentric radio show host who has a successful program on the air. His anonymous callers tell their stories of love, entanglements, misunderstandings and passionate affairs.

Chile, Comedy, Drama

Chile, la alegria ya viene

Documentary on the political situation before the Chilean plebiscite made for Chilean TV. Filmocentro Distribución Ltda., Chile.

Chile, History

Chile: Memoria Obstinada / Chile: Obstinate Memory

Chile, Obstinate Memory visits with Chileans who experienced Augusto Pinochet’s coup first-hand. Survivors reminisce as they watch Patricio Guzmán’s film The Battle of Chile, recognizing lost comrades and recalling their courage, gaiety, and love of life. Those who were not killed during the coup itself were crowded into the National Stadium in Santiago, where many were tortured, disappeared, and never seen again. Survivors talk about the terror that characterized the Pinochet regime until the dictator was finally obliged to relinquish power.

Chile, History, Politics/Human Rights, Social Movements/Resistance

Cien Niños Esperando Un Tren

Critically acclaimed film about a cinema workshop that works with poor children in the slums, many of whom have never seen a film before, to understand cinema as a mode of expression.

Chile, History, Social Movements/Resistance

Coronación / Coronation

A beautifully photographed and haunting tale of obsession and repressed desire played out against the backdrop of a decaying mansion in Santiago. Glum, middle-aged bachelor Don Andres hires Estela, a 17-year old country girl, to care for his wealthy and abusive grandmother. He grows increasingly obsessed with her, blinding himself to the threats around him and his own mental breakdown. Based on the novel by Jose Donoso.

Chile, Drama, Literature

Dance of Hope

To call attention to the absence of their loved ones, "disappeared" during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, Chilean women perform the cueca, Chile's national dance of passion and courtship, poignantly and without partners.

Chile, History, Music/Dance, Politics/Human Rights, Women's Studies

Death And The Maiden

A powerful psychological thriller about one woman's struggle to heal from the effects of torture. Fifteen years after being tortured and imprisoned by a sadistic doctor, Paulina Escobar, played by Sigourney Weaver, faces a man who may have been her torturer. This film reflects the realities of political repression that occurred in Chile during the Pinochet regime. A Roman Polanski film, based on the play by Ariel Dorfman.

Chile, Latin America, USA

Dedos De Luna

Through a poetic combination of words and paintings, Dedos De Luna tells the story of Toño and his grandfather, Don Gregorio. They enjoy making masks together, until Don Gregorio dies after making his last mask. Toño must come to terms with the death and decide whether to carry on the tradition of mask making. This is an instructional video that is intended to be paired with the rest of the Dedos De Luna unit.

Chile, Latin America, USA

Diarios De Motocicleta / Motorcycle Diaries

The Motorcycle Diaries is an adaptation of a journal written by Ernesto Che Guevara when he was 23 years old. He and his friend, Alberto Granado are typical college students who, seeking fun and adventure before graduation, decide to travel across Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Peru in order to do their medical residency at a leper colony. The two best friends start off with the same goals and aspirations, but by the time the film is over, it's clear what each man's destiny has become.

Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Drama, Literature, Peru

Estadio Nacional

After the coup d’etat that occurred on September 11, 1973, the Chilean government initiated an atrocious pursuit against former allies of the overthrown Socialist President, Salvador Allende. A series of house raids were conducted and thousands of people were arrested. This documentary tells how more than 12,000 prisoners were confined, tortured and some were killed at the National Stadium—making it the largest concentration camp in Chile.

Biography, Chile, History

Frontera, La (The Exile)

During the Pinchet Regime, opposition politicians were often sent into internal exile to small rural towns. This film tells the story of such a relegado in a remote southern fishing village (Puerto Saavedra) where he finds mystery, love, and a new way to see the world. La Frontera is the most awarded Chilean film in history.

Chile, Drama, Politics/Human Rights, Social Issues, Social Movements/Resistance

Gypsies Without Tents / Gitanos Sin Carpas

This documentary portrays the lives of Chile’s estimated 15 – 20,000 Romanies (Gypsies) by documenting the stories of three families and their everyday struggles to reconcile their traditional culture with the advantages offered by cultural assimilation. The film brings us into the families’ homes, their places of worship, the children’s schools, and the markets where the men trade, where the protagonists speak, in the Romani language as well as Spanish, about their lives and their concerns as Chileans and as Romanies.

Chile, Migration/Immigration, Social Issues

Historias De Futbol (Soccer Stories)

 This film includes three stories about football, one of the most important twentieth-century rituals. A third division player from Santiago de Chile is bribed, but does not realize that his behavior betrays more than the loyalty of his team-mates. A boy from Calama, Chile wins the local derby pichanga, a soccer match that can last all afternoon, but he loses the few pesos he acquired by pawning his mother's last possessions. Francisco, a boy from the city, is stuck in a remote corner of the southern island of Chiloé on the day that Chile has to play its qualifying match for the World Cup. The only TV is in the house of the Serón sisters. While the local male population gathers to watch the match, the sisters decide which of them will initiate the young Francisco into love.

Chile, Drama, Gender/Sexuality, Politics/Human Rights, Social Life and Customs

I Love Pinochet

How can it be that after Pinochet's repressive regime the former general can still count on the uunconditional support of so many Chileans? Constructed from a series of portraits that reveal the breadth and complexity of Pinochetism in Chile, I LOVE PINOCHET offers a unique look at the social and political system left by Augusto Pinochet, as seen from his followers’ point of view.

Chile, History, Politics/Human Rights, Social Movements/Resistance

It’s Raining On Santiago

A dramatic re-telling of the events surrounding the military takeover of the government of President Salvador Allende. The film depicts, in a gritty realistic style, Pinochet's fascist acts against followers of Allende's socialist Unidad Popular, and depicts the struggle against all odds, of Allende followers willing to sacrifice their lives for their cause. Soldiers disloyal to Pinochet were systematically executed along with university professors, artists, and journalists while the city leaders were bribed into shutting Santiago down.

Chile, Politics/Human Rights

Lagos, Ricardo (Visit To UNC)

 Filmed on November 9, 2001, when Chilean President Ricardo Lagos Escobar received the Honorary Doctor of Laws from UNC-Chapel Hill. The film includes the introduction by deans and Lagos’ speech upon acceptance of the award.

Chile, USA

Machuca

Set in 1973, in Santiago, Chile, Machuca is a poignant coming-of-age film, drawn from the filmmaker's childhood. Two boys from different economic backgrounds become great friends, while the conflicts on the streets lead Chile to the bloody and repressive military coup, changing forever their lives, their relationship and their country.

Chile, Drama, History, Social Movements/Resistance

Missing

John Shea, Sissy Spacek, Jack Lemmon. A young American journalist mysteriously disappears during the violent 1973 military coup in Chile. When his wife and father attempt to find him, they are confronted with a deeply disturbing political reality relating to their own country and the country they are investigating. A 1982 Cannes Film Festival winner.

Biography, Chile, Drama, History, Latin America, Politics/Human Rights, Social Movements/Resistance, USA

Montaña De Luz

On a Honduran mountainside overlooking vast fields of sugar cane, a six-year-old boy named Marlon dreams of becoming an artist. Twelve-year-old Inri dreams of attending university. Little Yorleni simply dreams of having a family. Meet the children of the Montaña de Luz orphanage, their lives a living testament to the beauty and innocence of childhood in the face of adversity beyond their years. With artistry and honesty, the camera paints a stirring portrait of a loving community where nothing is truly certain but hope and where each birthday is a celebration of dreams fulfilled and dreams to come.

Biography, Chile, Drama, History, Latin America, Politics/Human Rights, Social Movements/Resistance, USA

Nostalgia de la Luz / Nostalgia For The Light

For his new film director Patricio Guzmán, famed for his political documentaries (The Battle of Chile, The Pinochet Case), travels 10,000 feet above sea level to the driest place on earth, the Atacama Desert, where atop the mountains astronomers from all over the world gather to observe the stars. The sky is so translucent that it allows them to see right to the boundaries of the universe. The Atacama is also a place where the harsh heat of the sun keeps human remains intact: those of Pre-Columbian mummies; 19th century explorers and miners; and the remains of political prisoners, “disappeared” by the Chilean army after the military coup of September, 1973. So while astronomers examine the most distant and oldest galaxies, at the foot of the mountains, women, surviving relatives of the disappeared whose bodies were dumped here, search, even after twenty-five years, for the remains of their loved ones, to reclaim their families’ histories. Melding the celestial quest of the astronomers

Chile, Country/Region, Environment/Geography, Politics/Human Rights, Subject

Nuestro Siglo: La Historia De Los Chilenos En El Siglo Xx

this successful television series is the story of how the big changes and events of the century have affected our lives. It is a story told from the experiences of the people. It is a story of big people who left footprints and of the people who participated or witnessed the significant Chilean historical events.

Chile

Pascua Lama: A Contemporary Quest For El Dorado

This documentary provides an in-depth look at the social, economic, and environmental impact of the Pascua Lama gold mine in the Huasco Valley of northern Chile. By examining the Canadian Barrick Gold Corporation's management of the mine, this film forces us to rethink whether such operations are actually beneficial for Chile and its citizens. In addition to exploring the negative environmental impact and associated effects on local agriculture, the films uses interviews with a number of activists who argue that these mines generate very little economic benefit for the local or national economies, and instead export profits while nationalizing costs.

Chile, Economics/Development, Environment/Geography

Pinochet’s Last Stand

The drama, based on true events, tells the fascinating story of the surprise 1998 arrest of the former Chilean dictator for crimes against humanity. Armed with diplomatic passport and apparent immunity, the retired general visited Great Britain for a vacation that was to forever change his life - and the prospects for dictators across the globe. Amnesty International spearheaded the long-awaited arrest with the help from the Spanish and British governments, but faced a pro-Pinochet publicity campaign masterminded by one of the dictator's few allies, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. As the dissenting faction pushed for an extradition trial, 500 days passed with Pinochet under house arrest in an exclusive suburban London community.

Biography, Chile, Drama, History, Politics/Human Rights, Social Issues

Sweet Country

The director of Zorba the Greek provides a drama about one family's reactions to the events in Chile in 1973.

Chile

WICHAN: EL JUICIO (WICHAN: THE TRIAL)

Chile