Chile

The Biobío is one of the longest rivers in Chile, having its source in the Andes and flowing into the Pacific Ocean. In 1997 the Spanish hydro-electric company ENDESA decided to build a dam in the Biobío River to form the Ralco hydroelectric power station. In May, 2004, the flooding of the Ralco valley started and 70 indigenous families were displaced and "invited to live in the high mountains" at a height of 2,000 meters. Mapuche spokespeople who have denounced the situation of their brothers have been persecuted and convicted by the Chilean courts, using anti-terrorist laws developed under Pinochet, although none have ever been found in possession of a firearm or other weapons. “Switch off” is a tale about a usurped nation, about a forgotten genocide, about globalization, about one river.

"The Veil of Berta" is the delicate narration of the story of Berta Quintremán, an elderly indigenous woman who at the age of 88 leads the last group opposing the construction of the Ralco project, a gigantic dam that will stop the flow of the Bio-Bio River and flood the land where her native Pehuenche community, Ralco Lepoy, have lived for centuries.

After a military coup overthrew the democratically elected Socialist government of Chile on September 11, 1973, the capital’s National Stadium was the scene of the indiscriminate mass detentions of more than 12,000 suspected dissidents, and the brutal interrogations, torture, and executions they underwent. This film is the first in-depth investigation into the chilling events that took place in the stadium. With the testimony of more than 30 witnesses – former prisoners, priests, soldiers, journalists, nurses, and neighbors – this film provides a detailed and moving account of the experiences of those detained in the stadium. This courageous film unearths a part of Chilean history that is still taboo 30 years later. It opens with the 2000 presidential elections held in the stadium, where one of the vote counters who was also a detainee muses on the irony that in people were exercising their democratic rights “in the same place where people were detained and robbed of their freedom.”

GYPSIES WITHOUT TENTS 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. We are shown through the experiences of the subjects themselves the shifting terrain that is Romani identity in the Americas.

This documentary provides a window into Chile’s Jewish community of some 20,000 by presenting in detail the lives and stories of three of its members. Presented in their everyday routines of work, family, friendship, and worship, the speakers express their attitudes toward religion and work, and reflect on their own stereotypes and the ones they are subjected to.

Rarely do rural and urban teenagers have a chance to cross the divide to form friendships. When Christopher’s eighth-grade class learns about Chile’s ethnic diversity, he forms an email penpal relationship with a teenager of Quechuan descent who lives in the desert. This charming and affectionate documentary follows Christopher as he travels from his working class neighborhood in Santiago across the breathtaking Chilean landscape to meet his penpal, a shy but friendly thirteen-year-old named Juan.

In the weeks that followed the September 11, 1973 coup, the military government began a massive operation to exterminate dissidents. Community leaders, leftist activists, and even people with no political affiliations were arrested, tortured, and executed. During the spring nights of 1973, military trucks drove through Santiago picking up hundreds of dead bodies; many of them were buried in unmarked graves in a desolate area known as Patio 29 in Santiago's General Cemetery. This film documents the horrific events through interviews with victims' relatives, witnesses to the executions, lawyers, and forensic anthropologists who exhumed and identified the remains 20 years later.

In the mountain ranges of southern of Chile, kilometers from the Argentine border, lives the indigenous community Ralco Lepoy. Since 1994, Endesa, the largest electric company in Latin America, has been constructing an hydroelectric mega-center located in this zone. This award winning documentary follows women from the Pehuenches that fight for their land against seemingly impossible odds.

Filmed for the 25th anniversary of his death, this biography recounts the extraordinary life of famed Chilean singer-songwriter, theater director, folklorist, and political activist Victor Jara.