The 17th edition of one of the most important film festivals in Chile announced its competition slate as well as retrospectives and other screenings of documentaries from famous directors. Dedicated exclusively to non-fiction filmmaking from Chile, Latin-America and the world, FIDOCS was created and still headed by legendary Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán (Nostalgia for the Light, The Battle of Chile Trilogy). Since its beginnings FIDOCS has been a politically committed festival that inscribes each decision with a responsible editorial line, thus, the 40th anniversary of the coup d'etat that threw out the democratic government of Salvador Allende and put the dictator Augusto Pinochet at the head of state in 1973 couldn't possibly be without any notice in the programming of the festival, with a special showing of the three films that make up The Battle of Chile trilogy, directed by Patricio Guzmán and finished in Europe, produced by Chris Marker.
Speaking of Chris Marker, the festival managed to get in contact with him before his sad demise requesting to name its short film competition after him. Marker himself responded that he didn't like the fame, but his cat did, so they named the competition after it: Monsieur Guillaume. The French director will also have a retrospective with selected films from his recent and also classic filmography with films like Level Five and Sans Soleil among others. The film that will open the fest will be the french documentary The House of the Radio by the famed french filmmaker Nicolas Phillibert (To Be and To Have, Nenette), its synopsis reads as follows:
Twenty-four hours in the life of Radio France, from one dawn to another. Along its corridors, inside its recording studios, with its producers, presenters, journalists and various guests. And outside on a motorbike in the wake of the Tour de France or in the company of a thunderstorm photographer
The festival has three competitions, the before mentioned short film competition named 'Monsieur Guillaume', a Chilean and a Latinamerican competition. Among the Chilean films that can be seen from the 24th all the way to the 30th of June are the critically acclaimed El otro día (The Other Day) directed by famed Chilean documentary filmmaker Ignacio Agüero, also a film about Agüero himself made its way into the competition, Qué historia es esta y Cuál es su final (What is this story and how does it end?) directed by the festival acclaimed director José Luis Torres Leiva. Among the rest we can see Quiero morirme dentro de un tiburón (I wanna die inside a shark, directed by Sofía Paloma Gómez), Pena de muerte (Death Row, by Tevo Díaz), Los Rockers, Rebelde Rock&Roll (The Rockers, Rebel Rock&Roll, by Matías Pinochet), Las Cruces de Quillagua (The Crosses of Quillagua, by Jorge Marzuca Venegas), La última estación (The Last Station, by Cristián Soto and Catalina Vergara) and A Primera Hour (At First Hour, by Javier Correa). The Latinamerican competition goes as follows:
Doméstica (Brazil), directed by Gabriel Mascaro.
Don Ca (Colombia), directed by Patricia Ayala.
El charco azul (Colombia), directed by Irene Lema.
Huellas (Argentina), directed by Miguel Colombo.
La cigüeña metálica (Spain), directed by Joan López Lloret.
La gente del río (Argentina), directed by Martín Benchimol y Pablo Aparo.
La Multitud (Argentina), directed by Martín Oesterheld.
Mejunje (Cuba), directed by Juan Manuel Gamazo.
Mitote (México), directed by Eugenio Polgovsky.
No habrá revolución sin canción (France), de Mélanie Brun.
One of the most important elements of FIDOCS is how much interest they have in actually teaching people how to watch documentaries, how to enjoy them and/or understand them. That's why the School of FIDOCS is again afoot with many guests telling about their projects and their approach to documentary filming:
In this 6th edition of FIDOCS School, the objective is still the same: To incentivize training and knowledge of documenta- ry language in future directors, through classes imparted by the main guest directors at FIDOCS. It's an activity created and produced by the festival, with an open call to the different film and communications schools in Santiago, so that their best students can earn scholarships to FIDOCS activities. There is an arrangement in place with FIDOCS during the festival week. The students have the availability to partici- pate in the Festival, without limitations from other school commitments. For this reason these activities at FIDOCS School, including lectures and film screenings, are manda- tory and attendance is kept.
2013 FIDOCS SCHOOL GUESTS
Juan Carlos Rulfo, director of El abuelo Cheno y otras historias.
Laurent Hasse, director of Le bonheur... terre promise.
José Luis Torres Leiva, director of ¿Qué historia es ésta y cuál es su final?.
Alejandra Moffat, director of Candelaria.
Francisco Javier Rodríguez, director of The third person.
With over 90 films playing, this year the festival will be a blast, tickets are now being sold in Santiago de Chile, hope that you can attend and live this party. I will most surely be covering it.