This week on Thursday of Chilean Cinema we took a trip some years ago to present four short films that were created within the framework of "Chile Factory", a creative program organized by CinemaChile in collaboration with the Directors' Fortnight of Cannes Film Festival in 2015.
"Chile Factory" was a project that brought together the efforts of Chilean institutions such as CinemaChile and the National Council of Culture and the Arts (CAIA) and aimed to boost the career of four young Chilean directors. Ignacio Rodríguez, Matías Rojas, Teresita Ugarte and Manuela Martelli, along with Amirah Tajdin (Kenya, Dubai), Mariko Saga (Japan, Poland), Ofir Grazier (Israel, Germany) and Sara Rastegar (France), formed creative pairs generating interesting audiovisual proposals that were premiered at the French meeting event.
Martelli and Tajdin worked together on the project Marea de tierra, a story that tells a powerful portrait of sorority between women despite the class differences and social context. While Rojas and Saga created the film Necesito Saber, a tense production that opens the question on how do we deal with child abuse even when the laws themselves do not guarantee security or justice.
Rodríguez and Rastegar created El llano de la paciencia, a story filled with comedy and complicity where two old friends meet to dig up a treasure they had hidden in the desert. On the other hand, Ugarte and Graizer carried out a quest of memory with La discoteca, a short film that recalls the torture centers that existed during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and that addresses how the murderers and torturers continue to go unpunished.
Among the actors who participated in this memorable initiative are Blanca Lewin, Paula Zúñiga, Jaime Vadell, José Soza, Tomás Vidiella and Luis Dubó. The shooting took place in regions such as Puerto Natales, Chiloé, the Atacama Desert and Santiago Centro, displaying national landscapes as destinations for international film production.
Chile was the third country to be part of this program, being preceded by Taipei Factory (2013) and Nordic Factory (2014). After the experience, Martelli commented "In that rich multicultural environment, the pleasure of filming was like a dream come true. I’ll always be grateful for it." While Ugarte said "Chile Factory is a project composed by many layers that have helped me to grow in different areas both personal and social".
Enjoy watching the short films on the following links:
