Running until June 18th is the 2021 edition of FIDLab, the encounter and development platform at prestigious French film festival FIDMarseille, which has two Chilean projects among its selection: To Die Standing (“Morir de pie”), the second feature film by María Paz González, and I Will Never Be a Cop by Carolina Moscoso, winner of the Grand Prix at last year’s version of the festival with her first feature, Night Shot.
FIDLab is a trampoline toward the internationalization of works in development from around the world, with a careful curation of only 16 projects selected for networking and writing sessions this year. We invite you to get to know the work of these talented Chilean filmmakers and their new film proposals.
María Paz González, a project that opens doors to current themes at FIDLab 2021
As a filmmaker, González intersects the creative worlds of documentary and fiction; direction, production, and writing. She has developed a large part of her work in the field of documentary, producing Stealing Rodin (Cristóbal Valenzuela, 2017); Space Journey (Carlos Araya, 2019), and co-writing Night Shot by Carolina Moscoso (2019). Her latest film was Lina from Lima (2019), a feature-length fiction that combines the drama and musical genres.
At FIDLab she is currently promoting her new production To Die Standing, a fiction project that seeks international financing, and whose producer is Giancarlo Nasi (Quijote).
“It’s my second fiction film and it’s the first time that we’ve gone out with a project from the beginning to find international financing. FIDLab is a big space but with quite a sensitive artistic eye, so I’m very content to be able to participate. We arrived there due to an award that the Festival of Marseille gave us at a laboratory by Cine CCC, so we’re happy to take advantage of it,” said María Paz.
The film is a comedic drama that places a female character as the protagonist and whose central theme is lack of empathy. “It’s about a topic that seems socially very current to me. In terms of opportunities, I think it’s interesting to communicate about the film and see what happens. It has been very lovely because it’s a project that draws a lot of curiosity and the conversation ends up being very stimulating,” González pointed out.
Regarding sharing the stage with Carolina Moscoso, González commented that she was content. “She has a radical and provocative perspective that I feel is quite fundamental in understanding feminism. I love her vision of cinema, and we became friends after she invited me to work with her on the writing of Night Shot. I think this lab is a natural space for her new project, especially because she won the festival last year with her documentary.”
Carolina Moscoso, the director who is returning to FIDLab with an intimate story
Brave, and made up of many cinematic layers — that is how we would describe the work of Carolina Moscoso, who during 2020 made an impact with her documentary Night Shot, a film that explores the wounds left by abuse, the revictimization of the judicial process, and how friendship helps heal patriarchal drama. And which premiered at FIDMarseille and won the Grand Prix in the International Competition.
In 2021, I Will Never Be a Cop is a documentary project produced by Camila José Donoso’s Transparaíso Cine (Naomi Campbell; Casa Roshell; and Nona: If They Soak Me, I'll Burn Them), which is based on 30 years of home videos filmed by her uncle. The recordings shed light on the relationship her family members have with the national police, once again projecting an intimate portrait with a powerful political perspective.
“The development of I Will Never Be a Cop has been quite a nice process. These are images that have marked me, because through them, I became aware that many of my relatives were police officers who had chosen this occupation to escape poverty, as a way to ascend socially,” said Moscoso.
The project also seeks to be a personal exploration with an intense look at her roots, and into the vision she has of herself. “Something I want to explore is my own personal police officer and the inner policeman I carry around, and perhaps the cop we all have inside in one way or another. Especially myself as I was raised by them, so as much as I reject it, I have a lot of that in me. I’m interested in exploring those limits. What it means to be a cop.”
With respect to the participation of María Paz in FIDLab, Moscoso comments, “I’m overjoyed, that we’re making cinema, we’re making films in the middle of a pandemic. María Paz is a marvellous creator who I greatly admire, whose presence has been very important in what I’m attempting to do, so I love that we’re both gambling on these films at the same time and that we’re growing, discovering, and getting inspired and everything as a friendship, that what we do is so important.”
