The Chacabuco Project

Saturday, November 11th at a public school in Santiago, Chile, about 150 ex-political prisoners of Chacabuco and their families show up for a reunion lunch. Chacabuco opened its gates as a concentration camp on November 9, 1973 and every year the “Chacabucanos” (as they call themselves) meet to have lunch and reminisce about the not-so-good times of their shared Chacabuco prison camp past.

I was invited to screen my documentary, Deserted Memory. I showed up with the film just finished a few days before and was met with my first challenge: how to show it to them. There was no projector, no sound system and nobody seemed to be paying attention. I didn’t blame them. Most of them only met each other once a year at these Chacabucano reunions. They were all excited to see each other and lunch was being served on picnic tables on the school’s concrete soccer field/makeshift auditorium.

So I set up a television in a 1st grade classroom and brought in 30 chairs (all that would fit in the room at a time)… and announced a showing. All who were interested funneled themselves into the small classroom. I did two consecutive screenings and managed to show the documentary to about 50 of them. After each showing I filmed the groups’ reaction to the documentary. They began commenting on the documentary, which then led into discussions of their own experiences. I was not prepared for the personal stories and testimonies they gave. Ex-political prisoners, their wives and children began talking openly about being oppressed and what it was like to fight a dictatorship for 17 years.

I was floored by the intensity of their emotions and the way they shared their experiences so openly (albeit in this intimate setting, a classroom filled with people they were comfortable with). They cried, screamed and praised. Feedback was both positive and negative- and mostly, it was positive. Criticisms were raised and then challenged by others and the discussion went back and forth naturally. The atmosphere in the 1st grade classroom became extremely intimate and I felt a very charged and incredibly personal connection with many of the people who shared their experiences with me.

The most important thing for me, was the almost unanimous expression of gratitude by the ex-prisoners and their families for having undertaken the making of the documentary and presenting it to them. I was thanked repeatedly and many of them expressed their desire to continue such discussions in the future. They mentioned how silence and “the loss of being able to be surprised” had become a way of adapting to a Chile that would not respond to their cries. And how important it was to create a space where they could speak amongst themselves, and at the same time have what they say be recorded… as they said, “not for ourselves but for our children and our children’s children.”

This was the world premiere: in a 1st grade classroom in a public school in Santiago, Chile, to the ex-political prisoners of Chacabuco and their families. From here, I will take the film to Rome, Italy to the Desert Nights International Film Festival on December 1st; and where it goes next… who knows, but I’ll keep you posted.

posted by Niles Atallah at 11:23 PM 0 comments links to this post
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Goethe Institute Supports the Chacabuco Project
The Santiago Goethe Institute was one of the first places we went to do pre-production research on Chacabuco. They’ve been involved with Chacabuco resoration efforts since the 1990’s. The two former directors oversaw the restoration of the theater, various festivals and book publications.

They’re currently not directly involved in Chacabuco restoration, but from the very inception of our Chacabuco Project, these guys have been really cool. They opened up all their archives — including a rare German documentary filmed in Chacabuco while it was still a concentration camp — and they even let us use their copy machine for free!

So we’re now proud to have their official support, and use of their logo! Thanks Goethe Institute!