Chile’s Vibrant Doc Scene Lights Up Cannes With 3rd Showcase
variety.comAnna Marie de la Fuente As Chile hosts its third Docs in Progress Showcase at Cannes’ Marché du Film, it brings to the fore one of the richest and most prolific documentary traditions in Latin America, led by such figures as Patricio Guzmán, whose 2019 “The Cordillera of Dreams” won the Cannes Golden Eye, and Maite Alberdi, whose 2020 “The Mole Agent” snagged an Oscar nomination.
Spurred by a major jump in co-productions and a modest increase in state funding, more Chilean documentaries are being made — 24 are co-productions to date this year, many driven by women producers, says Paula Ossandon, head of Chiledoc, apublic-private alliance between the Chilean Documentary Corp. (CCDoc) and ProChile.
The latest crop shows a greater diversity of genres and themes, with a growing number of docs about marginalized groups, from Chile’s Indigenous tribes to its LGBTQ+ community and the current socio-political climate in the country.
To foster more films by Indigenous filmmakers, Chiledoc held two “Connect With One’s Roots” workshops for them. “They were carried out jointly between CCDoc and the Sundance Documentary Film Program within the framework of our international industry meeting at Spain’s Conecta Fiction & Entertainment, with the first held in January 2021 and the second in December that same year,” she says, adding: “Each workshop had five participating projects.” A third workshop is pending confirmation, she says.
Read more on variety.com