Another Thursday means more Chilean movies to watch from anywhere in the world. We continue our program with two risk-taking films that pose deep reflections on the body, desire and power. Kingdoms (2017), Pelayo Lira's first film, is a love story between two university students that build a relationship based on sex, portraying along the way a society marked by consumption and the desire for excess. The short film El destapador (2012), by Carolina Adriazola and José Luis Sepúlveda, on the other hand, intertwines the lives of four people who live together, where their own bodies become a place of rebellion and resistance.
Kingdoms
In Kingdoms, Lira reflects on what it means to cross into adulthood in today's world and the daunting shadow of uncertainty that affects the Chilean middle class. In the film Alejandro (Diego Boggioni) and Sofía (Daniela Castillo) maintain a passionate relationship, visible through intense sexual scenes that also show the imbalanced emotional connection between them.
Shots of intertwined bodies and faces in intimacy are contrasted with the daily tasks of university life and the search for independence. Over time, Alejandro's adolescent behavior provokes Sofía to reject him, making her realize she must take agency over her future.
Produced by Diego Pino (Cangrejo Producciones) in co-production with Yeniffer Fasciani (Niebla Producciones ), Kingdoms is based on the book of the same name by Romina Reyes (co-writer). It had its world premiere in the International Competition of the 19th edition of BAFICI, where it won the award for Best Individual Performance for Castillo, continuing to premiere in European in the prestigious Karlovy Vary Festival and nationally in SANFIC13.
El destapador
Carolina Adriazola and José Luis Sepúlveda are characterized by an audiovisual standpoint that continually explores societies margins and the marginalized, developing a cinema that is transgressive in its content as well as its forms of production. El destapador is no exception, and it offers us a look into the lives of characters that are invisibilized by the mainstream, people who resist the violence of capitalism through their own bodies.
The film explores the exterior and the interior of an occupied house in Valparaíso. Inside, 4 people live collectively, having conversations about injustice and individualism, showing their own livelihoods as a place of opposition. While outside, in the public area, various social demonstrations that occur throughout the city are continuously repressed by the police.
Shot in an occupied house in Valparaíso that was raided shortly after filming, the characters include a young lesbian fighting for her basic rights, a guy who experiments with pain as a political statement, and an older homophobic woman. A gem in contemporary Chilean cinema, we present this film for the first time subtitled in English on a streaming platform.
