We arrived in July and the Thursdays of Chilean Cinema continue their journey, sharing a feature film and a short film with the whole world for a week, as a way of showing how much our national talent and filmmakers have grown throughout these years. Today we present the film En la cama (2005) by the renowned director Matías Bize, and the short film Apnea (2010), by the young director and also actress Manuela Martelli.
The pandemic has brought to humanity the experience of confinement (and for some, claustrophobia) as well as the strange sensation that time has frozen, as if we had been left in the middle of a single moment. And although the pretext (pandemic) was unexpected, its consequence of being confined in our homes (for many, in small spaces) has also given us the opportunity to travel again through the experiences and conversations already lived. It is this feeling to which we hold on and invite you to go back a few years to re- enjoy En la cama, a film that takes place in a single room, with two characters who, after a sexual encounter, begin to open the doors of their past and their intimacy.
With more than 40 international awards and released commercially worldwide, the synopsis tells that a few hours after meeting in a cafe, Daniela (Blanca Lewin) and Bruno (Gonzalo Valenzuela) rent a room in a cheap hotel to have a sexual encounter and spend the night together. They don't know anything about each other, not even their names, and after that date they will never see each other again. What seemed to be a chance encounter ends up opening a crack through which memories and dreams flow, truths and lies, wishes and fears, honesty and betrayal, love and hate.
Three weeks and 60 hours of recording. This is how this tape was born, which went through a long assembly process, after being recorded in digital format and with two cameras, and produced by Adrián Solar (Céneca Producciones) together with a German partner. En la cama was the second film by Bize - who has made couple relationships a constant in his films - and who, after its premiere at the Locarno Film Festival, toured multiple international competitions, obtaining awards at the Havana Film Festival (four!), the Espiga de Oro at the SEMINCI in Valladolid -becoming the youngest director to obtain this award in the history of the festival- and Best Film at the Viña del Mar International Film Festival.
The success of this feature film led Bize to direct En tu piel in 2018, invited by two producers from the Dominican Republic, and shot precisely in the Caribbean country. The film, as the director has said, "should have been a remake of En la cama," but it ended up being a totally different movie about a couple's nights of attraction.
After graduating from the Film School, the marathon career of Matías Bize, who is also a producer and screenwriter, began with the premiere of Sábado (2003) obtaining the “Rainer Werner Fassbinder” Award. Then came his successful En la Cama (2005), followed by Lo bueno de llorar (2007), shot in Barcelona and premiered worldwide at the Locarno Film Festival. Three years later, The Life of Fish was released and premiered at the Venice International Film Festival and winner of a Goya for Best Iberoamerican Film. Later, the Chilean director made La memoria del agua (2015), released in Venice Days. Currently, the director is working on his next projects, assuring a while ago: "I really want to continue filming in Chile as well."
Click here to watch IN BED
Along with Matías Bize's film, we present Manuela Martelli's behind the camera debut: Apnea.
The short film belongs to an intrinsically Latin American genre within cinema, films that reflect on female domestic work and how these women transcend their traditional roles. In just 7 minutes, the short manages to question the hierarchical power structures between Claire and her employee María, digging into the fragility, expectations and frustrations that drive this relationship. With crossed languages and a mother and daughter residing only out of the picture, the sound of the water ends up revealing the persistent presence of the absent. Shot by Martelli during her studies at Temple University, it premiered at FICValdivia and was presented at Rencontres de Toulouse and BAFICI.
In Apnea, little Claire kills time waiting for the arrival of her mother with María, her nanny from Ecuador. With a cinematography full of details, this work captures the strangeness and longing produced by relationships marked by hierarchies of power. Produced by Dominga Sotomayor of production company Cinestación.
At eighteen, Martelli made her acting debut in B-Happy, earning the Best Actress award at the Havana Film Festival. Since then she has participated in feature films produced in Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Italy, Germany and Spain, and television series produced in Chile and the United States. For her role in the film Machuca by director Andrés Wood, she received the Altazor Award for National Arts in Chile for best actress, and for El Futuro, directed by Alicia Scherson, the award for best actress at the Huelva Film Festival. In 2010 she received the Fulbright scholarship to do a Master in Management at Temple University, USA; that was when Apnea was filmed; and in 2014 she was selected by the Factory (Director’s Fortnight program) to shoot a short film co-directed with Amirah Tajdin. The result? The shortfilm entitled Marea, which was released at the Directors' Fortnight in Cannes 2015 and selected by the New York Film Festival and Sundance, among others. Martelli is preparing her first feature film titled 1976, produced by Cinestación and Wood Producciones. The shooting had to be postponed due to the health crisis. In addition, she is developing El deshielo, also produced by Wood Producciones and currently in development.
Click here to see APNEA
