All screenings at 'Camino a FIDOCS 30' are free. For screenings at the Cineteca Nacional de Chile, you must reserve your ticket online; the link is available here.
In 1997, in a Chile still trapped in a perpetual transition, Patricio Guzmán founded FIDOCS. Under the name 'First International Documentary Film Festival in Chile', its first edition was held at the Goethe-Institut, as its sole venue.
Among the activities of that inaugural edition, the 'First Retrospective of Chilean Documentary Cinema' stood out, a selection that recovered fundamental works by filmmakers such as Sergio Bravo, Héctor Ríos, Carlos Flores, and Ignacio Agüero. The following year, a second retrospective was programmed, expanding the historical scope and incorporating new films and filmmakers. Both exhibitions constituted one of the first systematic efforts to rescue, exhibit, and foster dialogue about a fundamental part of Chile's audiovisual heritage.
As part of the celebration of FIDOCS' thirtieth edition, we revisit this foundational retrospective, revisiting some of the films that helped define the Festival's identity and allowed us to rediscover a documentary tradition as diverse as it is essential. More than a re-release, this program functions as a 'Retrospective of the Retrospective': works that bring together different eras—the time of their creation, that of the first retrospective, and the present—to observe, through their images, what remains unchanged and what has yet to fully transform.
What does it mean to be young in a country where the future seems suspended? Made during the 1980s, these three films explore a generation searching for spaces of freedom amidst the dictatorship. 'The Pacifist Warriors' observes the punk scene's emergence in Santiago with humor and irony; 'Willy and Myriam' delves into the private lives of a young couple facing unemployment and a lack of communication; and 'Summer Party' travels along the central coast to listen to young people from different social classes talking about love, studies, work, family, and the country. Between collective expression, the fragility of relationships, and uncertainty about the future, these films reveal different ways of growing up in a restrictive and fractured environment.
Willy and Myriam
A documentary narrated by its protagonists, showing the daily life of a young Chilean couple from a working-class background and their four young children. Faced with unemployment, poverty, rural-to-urban migration, and lack of communication, they struggle to stay together as a family.
Pacifist warriors
Gonzalo Justiniano takes his camera to parties, streets, record stores, and hair salons to meet a group of young people playing at being punks amidst the suffocating society of the dictatorship. Those who speak here are not musicians or painters, but their followers, who hope for social change through a form of protest distinct from the conventional one.
Summer reel
A social journey along the coast of central Chile, from the popular Cartagena to the exclusive Algarrobo, allows us to capture the voices of young people. Amidst the parties and fun, aspirations, worries, and topics such as work, studies, relationships with their parents, dating, the future, and the country emerge. A certain mood of Chilean youth that summer of '84.