In this new edition we share a pioneering and innovative docu-reality that brought the LGBTQ+ movement to screens across Chile, showing for the first time on open television the relationship of a gay couple. Happy Together caused a stir on social media at the time of its release in 2015, right in the middle of the approval of the Life in Partnership Agreement in our country. The series raises issues that are still unresolved in Chile and promotes full respect for the rights of LGTBQ+ people, both in social norms and in public policies.
Produced by Parox, the program tells the story of Julio Dantas and Juan Pablo Fuentealba, who after nine years together and two years of marriage, face a major challenge: the desire to have a child and the real possibilities they have to fulfill that dream. Their love story has been crossed by the struggle and defense of LGBTQ+ rights, a struggle that led them to create in Chile the well-known Todo Mejora Foundation, an entity that works for the prevention of adolescent suicide and homophobic bullying of young people.
Through the story of Julio and Juan Pablo, Happy Together makes visible the identities that were marginalized until then, giving a real and contingent value to the role of public television. The success of the series was resounding in its ability to promote on open TV a substantial change through the portrait of Chilean families that do not respond to a heteronormed stereotype, opening intergenerational debates on love, homoparenthood and public policies that ensure the rights of the LGBTQ+ community.
This important connection with audiences and public television was described by Sergio Gándara from PAROX in an interview with CinemaChile in 2015, where he stated: "I believe that it is precisely this type of content that promotes coexistence, tolerance and the common good. These are the contents that our public channel has to prioritize, to put ahead in the programming and over the content that only generates the cash for the channel."
Since 2001, Parox has been creating content that connects with the audience and provokes deep social reflection. Led by Gándara, Leonora González and Álvaro Cabellos, Parox has been one of the precursors of international co-productions in serial format with projects such as Invisible Heroes (2019), a co-production between Chile and Finland that tells a powerful story of resistance within the dictatorship. With its national premiere set for this Wednesday, September 9, on the screens of Chilevisión Channel, the series quickly became a trending topic after the release of its international trailer, which you can watch here. In Spain, Invisible Heroes was released by Filmin and in Finland by the public television channel YLE.
Additionally, Parox has produced seventeen TV series, including several that are already classics of our national TV and that have obtained recognition from both critics and audiences, as is the case with Los archivos del Cardenal (2011), Gen Mishima ( 2008) and El Reemplazante (2012). They recently made the production Gemelas (2019) television series of the dramatic area of the Chilevisión channel, and are currently developing various projects for both national and international media.
They have also produced eight feature films between fiction and documentary; films that had an important tour of festivals such as Calle Santa Fé (2007), by Carmen Castillo, selected in the Un Certain Regard section at the Festival de Cannes; Play (2005) by Alicia Scherson, winner of the Tribeca Film Festival; Matar a todos (2007) by Sebastián Silva, winner of the Best Screenplay Award at the Havana Film Festival and selected in the Official Competition of the San Sebastian Film Festival and El Árbol Magnético (2013) who also made its debut in the Spanish competition and won at FICValdivia 2013.
Today we invite you to watch the first two episodes of Happy Together, available for one week and around the world.
