Night of the Captain

Programme IFFR 2024

Focus: Chile in the Heart

After the coup against the democratically elected government of Chile and the murder of the nation’s president, Salvador Allende, on September 11th 1973, masses of Chileans fled the country for unknown futures far away. In 1974, spearheaded by works like Sergio Castilla’s Pinochet: fascista, asesino, traidor, agente del imperialismo and Raúl Ruiz’s Dialogue d’exilés, a historically unique phenomenon started to take shape: a Chilean cinema in exile. The vast majority of Chile’s film culture had left and were now living spread across different nations, this included already established auteurs like Patricio Guzmán (The Battle Of Chile (Part 1): The Insurrection of the Bourgeoisie), Miguel Littin (Actas de Marusia) and Helvio Soto (La triple muerte del tercer personaje) as well as film students like Sebastián Alarcón (Night Over Chile), Leo Mendoza (Reír o no reír) or Luis Mora (Night of the Captain). Remarkably enough, the resulting production forms a coherent whole: it continues the Chilean cinema of the Unidad Popular, and protests against the fascism at home – while often presenting Chile as but an example for the forms of oppression and terrorism found all over the world. In an age where ever more filmmakers are forced into exile and whole communities are violently displaced, IFFR presents a grand overview of the phenomenon on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. We’ll present some twenty-five features and shorts covering the first decade of production in exile, mixing established classics with shorts and television works hardly seen since their original presentation.

Did you know there's also a Talk about our Chile in the Heart programme? Find out more via the button below.