Article in the Chilean newspaper La Tercera about the screening of Memoria Desierta in the National Cinematheque at the Moneda Palace in Santiago, Chile (June 27, 2007). Article in Spanish only.

Check out the latest video (it’s subtitled into English) of a 10 minute interview with architectural expert Dr. Eugenio Garcés Feliú on Chacabuco. The video includes architectural blueprints, aerial shots, super 8mm film footage, historical photographs from the 1920’s and recent photos of Chacabuco.

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NOTE: In order to watch these videos you will need a Quicktime player.
for Windows or Mac

This 10 minute short was filmed in November of 2006 when the documentary Memoria Desierta was shown at the annual reunion of the ex-political prisoners of Chacabuco in Santiago, Chile. After the screening of the documentary the reactions, suggestions and testimonies of the ex-prisoners and their families were filmed.

Read the blog entry about this event from November, 2006 for more detailed information.

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NOTE: In order to watch these videos you will need a Quicktime player.
for Windows or Mac

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Still to come (by June 25th)…

• 10 minute interview with architectural expert Dr. Eugenio Garcés Feliú of the Catholic University of Chile about Chacabuco subtitled into English.

Memoria Desierta will be shown on both June 23rd and 28th together with the German documentary from 1974 on Chacabuco and Pisagua by Walter Heynowski and Gerhard Scheumann:  Ich war, ich bin, ich werde sein.

Saturday June, 23 2007

19.30 hrs

Memoria desierta – Niles Atallah (Chile, 2006)

Yo fui, yo soy, yo seré (Ich war, ich bin, ich werde sein) – Walter Heynowski & Gerhard Scheumann (Alemania, 1973-74)
Thursday June 28, 2007

17.00 hrs

Memoria desierta – Niles Atallah (Chile, 2006)
Yo fui, yo soy, yo seré (Ich war, ich bin, ich werde sein) – Walter Heynowski & Gerhard Scheumann (Alemania, 1973-74)

WATCH TRAILER
5 minutes subtitled into English of Memoria Desierta.

Large File - Small File (not recommended for English speakers reading subtitles)

More videos to come in June (all subtitled into English… by the way, this is what takes so long, thanks for being patient!):

• 5 minute interview with architectural expert Dr. Eugenio Garcés Feliú of the Catholic University of Chile about Chacabuco.
• 10 minute short documentary segment on the reactions of the ex-political prisoners of Chacabuco and their families when Memoria Desierta was first shown to the Ex-Political Prisoners of Chacabuco Organization of Santiago on November 11, 2006.

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NOTE: In order to watch these videos you will need a Quicktime player.
for Windows or Mac

When
Thursday, January 25, 2007. 7:00 PM. Doors open at 6:30. Suggested $10 donation to the Red Poppy.

Where
Red Poppy Art House
2698 Folsom St.
SF, CA 94110
Phone: 415.826.2402
Website: www.redpoppyarthouse.org/contact.html

Hope to See you There
Thanks for Supporting the Chacabuco Project!

I (Niles) went to Rome and presented the documentary during the screening. It was an incredible event with filmmakers from all over the world. The festival was held in the Casa del Cinema in the Villa Borghese park in Rome, on the Via Veneto, the street most known for its appearance in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. During the 10 days I spent in Rome I alternated my time between watching films, meeting other filmmakers at festival dinners and parties and exploring the streets of Rome.

Now for 2007: Deserted Memory has been accepted to the following film festivals:

In the USA:
CineMás Albuquerque Latino Film Festival in New Mexico, USA between February 15-18.

In Chile:
7° Festival de cine latinoamericano CAVERNA BENAVIDES, January 25-28.
7° Festival Iberoamericano de Cine de Atacama, Caldera, February 2-11.

And on January 25th the documentary will be shown at the Red Poppy Art House in San Francisco. If you live in the area please try to make it and invite friends and family!

So far, we are scheduling more screenings, sending the film off to more festivals and working on getting DVDs printed in order to start selling copies of the documentary on the internet. This DVD will feature a variety of extras not included in the documentary: a short 10 minute documentary on the nitrate mining history of Chacabuco and a 20 minute documentary of Deserted Memory’s first screening in Chile with interviews/reactions of the ex-Chacabuco political prisoners and their families.

Saludos a todos and more news of upcoming festival screenings to come!

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!

We’re pretty excited.

Indeed, we’re very happy to have the Chacabuco documentary premiere here, especially considering the good cause it’s backing up - to raise awareness, through film, of the rich tales of life in the desert, but to also draw attention to the growing problem of global desertification.

In addition to Desert Nights, we’ve got a long list of other festivals we’re submitting to, including a local film festival based right here in Santiago, Chile.

Not to mention all the screenings to be scheduled at various international venues (universities and cultural centers) provided us through the generosity of our supporters.

So we’re confident that premiering at the Desert Nights Film Festival is just a first step in larger distribution, but there’s one hurdle we still have to cross:

Funding! Yay!

To submit to film festivals, print DVD’s, posters, covers, and, lastly, media and travel costs, the new budget is currently set at $10,000. We’ve already received our first donation from Jina Jibrin. Thanks Jina!

Starting tomorrow, we’ll be submitting the documentary to various film festivals, and rounding up a list of screening venues throughout this month and November. The film will be ready on December 1.

Chile’s Fondart program gave no funding to mid-length post-production documentaries this year — the category to which we applied. We’ll be looking for other sources of funding. The good news is that we will still be able to complete and distribute the documentary.

October and November will also see a series of Santiago-based screenings of the documentary. We’ll blog about these screenings, and use them to incorporate feedback from friends, local filmmakers, actors, journalists, artists and other people with an interest in the Chacabuco, human rights and the history of Chile.

We’ll keep you posted!