Chile 2022 Bonanza Awards: ‘1976,’ Alis, ‘My Imaginary Country’

It has been a landmark year for the audiovisual industry in Chile. According to statistics compiled by promotional organization CinemaChile, the country’s cinema scooped 45 international awards during the first half of 2022. Since then, more awards have been presented. Among the most recent is the debut of actress and director Manuela Martelli’s “1976”, which won the Best Debut Film award at the Jerusalem Film Festival in addition to receiving three major awards at the 26th Lima Festival, including Best Film.

One question is how Chilean cinema got to this point. One answer is a new generation of female cinemas and platform support, both driving the next phase of growth in Chilean cinema and its creative confidence and sense of artistic urgency.

The country produces an average of 30 films per year, of which at least five have received international acclaim in any given year.

“Being a small market of just 19 million people, we have to push our boundaries to seek funding and international partners in order to develop and produce content,” says Producer Maria Elena Wood. “We also have the ability to produce local stories with global appeal, capable of capturing the attention and engaging of global audiences,” she adds.

For Gabriela Sándoval, President of APCT (Association of Film and Television Producers) and Chair of the Sanfic Industria Chilean Industry Forum, Chile “not only celebrated the first half of the year in quantitative terms, but also in terms of quality as both films and TV productions rose to new heights, as And most importantly, a new generation of female directors has appeared.

This year, Sandoval counts eight female directors behind award-winning projects and films: Martelli, Mate Alberdi, Claire Weiskopf, Claudia Huayquimila, Bernarda Ojeda, Tana Gilbert, Natalia Luke and Constanza Figari.

She also stands behind many of these projects, whether directed by female directors or female directors, producers, a growing force in the past years.

Sandoval notes that two years ago, a state-backed film fund introduced incentives that encouraged the hiring of female directors and staff. Moreover, many movie events have sections dedicated to female filmmakers. All of this contributed to increasing the parity of women in the audiovisual work force.

“The fact that Chile is a small country makes certain phenomena move either very slowly or very quickly. For years we have been a very powerful country, and feminism quickly gained a lot of power,” says Martelli whose book “1976” provides the first feminist perspective of Pinochet’s ruthless regime.

“It may also be due to the fact that some of the women before us worked silently behind the scenes for many years, but it was necessary to lay the foundations for the strength of today’s young women,” she continues, adding, “I think something similar happened in the movies. The women were there, Without revealing their identities, they are building a space for themselves. When that space opened, there were already many women who had a lot to say.”

“Chile’s country support is minimal, but the lack of resources internally has made us adept at going abroad,” producer Alexandra Galvez says of the countless international co-productions that Chile has been involved in over the years. Galvis co-produced Berlinale Crystal Bear as Best Documentary “Alis” with Casatarántula from Colombia and Romanian deFilm, with Spain’s Latido Films handling global sales.

Galvez notes that “Chilean films are always a hit at high-profile festivals,” both in industry forums and in competition. Sandoval points out that industry awards always serve as a precursor to the festival circuit. Case in point: “1976” started the year by getting three industrial nods at the Toulouse Film Festival in France and two months later went to its world premiere at Cannes Film Festival directors’ week.

Of the 45 awards, 17 were presented in markets such as the Marché du Film in Cannes, where this year, Tana Gilbert’s women’s prison document “Malqueridas” and Thomas Woodruff’s “Erratic Blocks” received the awards.

Among the countries participating from Latin America at Cannes this year, Chile had the highest number of films in different sections of the festival, including a special screening of Patricio Guzman’s sharp document about Chile’s October 2019 revolution, “My Imaginary Country” due to be shown in Toronto and San Sebastian in September.

His previous documentary, “The Cordillera of Dreams”, was the first documentary to win Best Ibero-American Film at the preeminent Spanish Goya Awards, making history the first documentary to win the award in Goya’s 36 copies. Both documents were produced by Galvez along with Renate Sachs, wife of producer Guzman.

“Chile’s talent has been forged in the language of cinema, and this has clearly increased the quality of our TV content,” says Wood, who co-produced the mini-series Kidnapping News with Chilean producer Matthias Cardone of Invercine Prods. The Colombian series is based on Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s account of the kidnappings in Colombia under drug lord Pablo Escobar. Prime Video has launched in more than 240 countries and territories as its audience has grown to become one of the top 10 programs worldwide. Under the banner of Invercine & Wood, Wood and Cardone produced two more series, “Mary & Mike” for HBO, and “Dignity”, which aired on HBO Europe and Prime Video Latin America.

Chile’s most famous production company, Fabula, run by Pablo and Juan de Dios Larren, and with locations in the United States and Mexico, also produces television series, led by “La Joria”, which aired on Prime Video but on HBO Max in the United States was the first A locally produced Amazon original from Chile and debuted exclusively on Prime Video in Latin America, the Caribbean and Spain in July 2020.

Echoing how many of his fellow Chilean producers feel, Cardone says, “I go wherever the project takes me; I love working with talent from other cultures, we learn a lot from them.” He also adds that producing for the platforms has made them travel more. Inversen is the next shooting series in Mexico and Argentina.

Ostensibly, the spread of broadcasting devices in the region further contributed to the global reach of the audiovisual industry in Chile, increasing the confidence of creators in their ability to attract the interest of large audiences.