Chile '76

Directed by Manuela Martelli

Release Year: 2022
Running time: 95
Country: Chile, Argentina
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Subjects:
$15.96 - Classroom Rights
MSRP: $19.95
$349.00 - With PPR
$499.00 - With DSL
$499.00 - With DSL and PPR
MSRP: $599.00
Screening Request
Directed by: Manuela Martelli
Writer: Manuela Martelli, Alejandra Moffat
Crew: Yarará Rodríguez

Set during the early days of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, Chile ‘76 builds from quiet character study to gripping suspense thriller as it explores one woman’s precarious flirtation with political engagement. Carmen (Aline Kuppenheim) leads a sheltered upper middle class existence. She heads to her summer house in the off-season to supervise its renovation, while also performing local charitable works through her church. Her husband, children, and grandchildren come back and forth during the winter vacation, bringing reminders of the world beyond. When the family priest asks her to take care of an injured young man he has been sheltering in secret, Carmen is inadvertently drawn into the world of the Chilean political opposition and must face real-world threats she is unprepared to handle, with potentially disastrous consequences for her and her entire family.

Reviews

"A visually and tonally meticulous exploration of political resistance and conscience."

- Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
 

“Finely controlled and tense with the perpetual promise of violence… [and] a hell of a performance from Küppenheim as the heroine.”

- Anthony Lane, The New Yorker
 

“A gripping psychological thriller … one of the finest Latin American productions to open stateside this year”

- Carlos Aguilar, Los Angeles Times
 

“Critic’s Pick! A sly genre exercise, an example of how political repression can squeeze a domestic melodrama until it takes the shape of a spy thriller.”

- Teo Bugbee, The New York Times
 

“Dazzling. What begins as a muted marital melodrama slowly boils into a restrained political thriller, with an ease and skill all the more impressive in a first feature.”

- Manuel Betancourt, Variety
 

“This searingly intense character study sees a woman questioning her cosy bourgeois lifestyle in Pinochet’s Chile. An invaluable demonstration of feminine revolutionary cinema.”

- Marina Ashioti, Little White Lies
 

“Must-Watch! Chile ’76 is the foreign film you’d be ashamed to miss… A period thriller of beguiling power, energized by its portrait of one woman’s heroism.”

- Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
 

“Shrewdly compelling. Aline Kuppenheim is excellent in a film that leverages its genre into an unnervingly timeless study of authoritarianism.”

- David Ehrlich, Indiewire 
 

“The blend of character study, Hitchcockian intrigue and an excellent central performance from Aline Kuppenheim makes for a tensely involving tale."

- Allan Hunter, Screen International
 

“Absorbing. Kuppenheim is captivating as Carmen, letting the occasional emotion through a steely facade."

- Stephen Saito, The Moveable Fest 
 

“Martelli’s sure-handed direction makes impressive use of vibrant visuals, evocative sound design, and a meticulously detailed setting.”

- Peg Aloi, Arts Fuse
 

Awards

Official Selection – Cannes Directors' Fortnight

 

Official Selection – BFI London Film Festival

 

Official Selection – San Sebastián International Film Festival

 

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