The September 11, 1973 coup d'état that violently overthrew visionary Socialist leader Salvador Allende had a transformational impact on Chilean filmmaking. Among the first acts imposed by Pinochet was, in fact, the closing of the film bureau, Chile Films, which dealt a major blow to the vibrant state-supported New Chilean Cinema that had flourished since the late 1960s, led by pioneering directors such as Aldo Francia, Miguel Littín, and Raúl Ruiz. Rather than ending the movement, the coup—and the brutal seventeen-year dictatorship that followed—inspired myriad inventive forms of resistance filmmaking that included but also went far beyond the modes of outspoken political documentary which to this day remain the best-known expressions of Chilean cinema.

As a coda to the expansive “remapping” of Chilean cinema offered last spring, this program focuses on films made during the grim years that followed the coup d’état, whose fiftieth anniversary is being soberly recognized in Chile and around the world.

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