All events at 'Camino a FIDOCS 30' are free. At screenings in the Sala Cine Centro de Extensión UC, admission is on a first-come, first-served basis.
Following the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait at the end of the Gulf War, hundreds of oil wells were left burning, and the landscape was transformed by fire and devastation. Werner Herzog documents this scene from the ground and the air, capturing burning wells, battlefields, and destroyed vehicles. Through images that render the planet we inhabit unrecognizable, he transforms the devastation of Kuwait into an otherworldly landscape, bordering on science fiction and hostile to life.
Filmed in Kuwait after the Gulf War, 'Lessons in the Dark' flies over the burning oil fields during the Iraqi army's retreat as if they were otherworldly landscapes. Instead of explaining the conflict, Werner Herzog transforms its aftermath into an apocalyptic vision. Presented as 'Satan's Fires' at the first edition of FIDOCS, the film inaugurated a relationship that would make Herzog one of the festival's most frequently screened filmmakers, with more than 25 of his films programmed throughout its history. More than three decades after its creation, amidst a new escalation of violence in the region, its burning landscapes acquire a disturbing relevance.
Werner Herzog is one of the most influential filmmakers in contemporary cinema. A director, screenwriter, producer, and actor, he has made more than 70 films, both fiction and documentary. His work explores human obsessions, the wilderness, and the tension between dream and reality. Among his most acclaimed films are 'Aguirre, the Wrath of God' (1972), 'Fitzcarraldo' (1982), and 'Grizzly Man' (2005).