About the Film

7pm, Thursday, Nov 10, 2022

@R.W. Corns Building #312, OWU, Delaware, OH

Director & Screenwriter: Patricio Guzmán

Year & Country: 2022, Chile

Genre: Documentary

​Running Time: 83 MIN

"One day, without warning, a revolution exploded. It was the event that master documentarian Patricio Guzmán had been waiting for all his life: a million and a half people in the streets of Santiago, Chile, demanding justice, education, health care, and a new constitution to replace the strident rules imposed on the country during the Pinochet military dictatorship. Urgent and inspired, My Imaginary Country features harrowing front-line protest footage and interviews with dynamic activist leaders and powerfully connects Chile's complex, bloody history to contemporary revolutionary social movements and the election of a new president."

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DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

My last film, The Cordillera of Dreams, ended with a sequence in which I mentioned how my mother had taught me that when I saw a shooting star up in the sky, I could make a wish in my heart of hearts and that this wish would come true. In this final sequence, I said aloud that my wish was for Chile to recuperate its childhood and joy.

In October 2019, when my film came out in France, something completely unexpected happened

in Chile: a revolution, a social uprising. A million and a half people marched for more democracy, for a more dignified life, better education and a better health system for all. Chile had gotten its memory back.

Since Allende, I had never seen such a thing. As in the days of Popular Unity, I heard old songs written by Víctor Jara, Los Prisioneros, and many others. They were now sung by today’s Chileans. I realized that memory had been perfectly passed down and was very much alive.

Thousands of citizens marched, shouted and tagged the walls. Ordinary people. Many of them were the parents of students who were marching, retired people, former civil servants, or employees, anonymous persons. There was no leader then, there is no such thing now. We did

not see any famous person.

The people marched the streets, faced the police and their water cannons. Many people lost an eye. Thousands of them were injured and thirty-two died.

But how could it be that a whole people had woken up forty-seven years after Pinochet’s coup in a so-called social outburst, a major rebellion or even a revolution?

To me, it was a mystery.

So, I looked into that mystery, I filmed its effect on the atmosphere, the air, the emotions and the feelings of my fellow countrymen and women.

Fifty years after I directed The Battle of Chile, I was in the streets again, filming what was happening. I was there when the Chilean people voted for a new constitution and obtained an 80% majority in favour of a constituent assembly. I was there when a thirty-five-year-old left-

wing new president, Gabriel Boric, was elected with 56% of the votes. An unprecedented event in the history of the country, my imaginary country...

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ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Patricio Guzmán was born in 1941 in Santiago, Chile. He has dedicated his career to documentary cinema.

His films have screened widely and received international recognition. Guzmán studied at the Official School of Cinematographic Art in Madrid. From 1972 to 1979, he directed The Battle of Chile, a five-hour trilogy about Salvador Allende’s government and its fall to General Pinochet in a deadly miliary coup. Named one of the 10 best political films in the world by Cineaste, this film is the foundation of Guzmán's cinema.

After Pinochet took power, Patricio Guzmán was arrested and imprisoned at the National Stadium, where he was subjected repeatedly to simulated executions. In 1973, he left Chile and moved to Cuba, then to Spain, and then France, but remained very attached to his country and its history.

Guzmán is the president of the International Documentary Festival in Santiago, Chile(FIDOCS), which he founded in 1997. The Cordillera of Dreams'(Cannes 2019) closed a trilogy which began with Nostalgia for the Light (Cannes 2010) and The Pearl Button' (Berlin 2015). His latest film is My Imaginary Country.

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IN THE PRESS

“It’s a vindication, not just for the nation, but for its most clear-eyed, full-hearted chronicler.

Would that all countries were so lucky as to have a Patricio Guzmán, to help with the painful

process of recovering what has been lost and, as with 'My Imaginary Country,' occasionally to celebrate what has been gained.”

— Jessica Kiang, Variety

“With civil liberties in America under attack, those willing to fight to keep the liberties we

have in place could learn a thing or two from the Patricio Guzmán documentary

'My Imaginary Country.'”

— Valerie Comkplex, Deadline

“Despite all the sorrow from the ever-present trauma of young lives lost or permanently

scarred, 'My Imaginary Country' drips with the contagious thrill of hope...

It is hard not to be moved.”

— Rafaela Sales Ross, The Playlist

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“Immensely moving.”

— Kees Driessen, Business Doc Europe

“Guzman’s heart and soul investment in the film and the snapshots of people power in

action make for an emotional and involving documentary.”

— Allan Hunter, Screen International

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HISTORICAL TIMELINE

On September 11, 1973, General Augusto Pinochet seized power in Chile in a U.S.-backed military coup d'etat. He remained Chile's dictator for 18 years. His reign saw the execution of between 1,200 to 3,200 people, the internment of as many as 80,000 people, and the torture of tens of thousands.

Although General Pinochet was forced out in 1990, the constitution instituted under his rule remains in effect. The protest movement documented by Patricio Guzmán in My Imaginary Country transformed Chilean politics, and started the process of replacing the Pinochetera constitution with a constitution prioritizing gender equality, indigenous rights, and climate change.

Protest Movement and the New Constitution in Chile (2019-2022)

October 7, 2019: High school students began a campaign of faredodging in response to a metro faire increase in Santiago, the capital city of Chile. Despite government attempts to control

access to several metro stations, protests grow.

October 18, 2019: Clashes between students and police escalate throughout the week, leading to the closure of the entire metro system and increasing police violence. President Sebastián Piñera

deploys military and police, and describes the government as “at war with a powerful and relentless enemy" [i.e. the protestors].

October 25, 2019: More than 1.2 million people take to the streets of Santiago to protest social inequality and demand President Piñera's resignation. By the end of 2019, 29 people have died, nearly 2,500 have been injured, and 2,840 have been arrested. Human rights organizations have received several reports of violations conducted against protesters by security forces, including mutilation, torture, sexual abuse, and sexual assault.

October 28, 2019 : President Piñera changes eight ministries of his cabinet in response to the unrest, including the dismissal of his Interior Minister Andrés Chadwick.

November 15, 2019: Chile's National Congress agrees to schedule a national vote on rewriting the Constitution. Several political parties start the process of writing a new Constitution.

October 25, 2020: After the vote is delayed due to COVID-19, 78% of Chileans vote in favor of a new Constitution.

May 16, 2021: A Constitutional Convention is formed with 155 elected members. For the first time, 17 reserved seats are established for the 10 official indigenous groups.6 Also, the election system is designed to ensure gender parity, making it the first assembly of its kind in the world with an equal representation of men and women.

November 18, 2021: Chilean security services end an investigation into the possible involvement of Cuban and Venezuelan agents in the protests due to lack of evidence.

December 19, 2021: Gabriel Boric, a 35-year-old former student leader and constitutional agreement negotiator, is elected president of Chile. He becomes the youngest president in the country's history of the country following a runoff election against far-right candidate José Antonio Kast, whose father was a member of the Nazi party who had fled to Chile, and whose brother was General Pinochet’s labor minister.

March 16, 2022: Gabriel Boric takes office as Chile's 37th president.

May 16, 2022: Constitution Covention president María Elisa Quinteros presents the newly drafted Constitution. Among the rights and freedoms it enshrines are free higher education and gender parity across government. It also makes the state responsible for preventing, adapting to, and mitigating climate change. The new Consistution also eliminates Chile's senate in favor of a single-chamber legislature, and provides for the compensated restitution of Indigenous lands.

September 4, 2022: Following widespread disinformation campaigns, the drafted Constitution was rejected in a national vote. However, the government remains mandated to continue work on constitutional reform and that process continues.

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Review 1

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Student Resources: Guide

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