Sunday, September 17---It is hard to portray the significance of key historical events without the passage of time. Only in retrospect does the true enormity of history unfolding take on a full dimension. Only with some distance do the true emotions come through in a way that stirs the soul and pricks the conscience.

The above statements certainly apply to the Chilean film MACHUCA, considered a masterwork of contemporary Latin American cinema. Released in 2005, more than 30 years after the events that it describes, the film has been a major hit around the world at major international film festivals.

Set in the critical year of 1973, when the socialist President Salvador Allende was democratically elected in Chile, the film tells the tale of a bold social experiment which attempted to integrate students of the upper and lower classes (which had never been the case in the highly stratified Chilean society).

The bourgeois boy Gonzalo and the slum tough Pedro becomes the unlikeliest of best friends. Their newly bonded friendship is severely tested as conflicts on the streets eventually culminates in the bloody and repressive military coup of General Augusto Pinochet. This historic event ultimately changes their lives and their relationship, as it transforms the society in which they live. The wavering bonds of friendship set against the turmoil of social change is the potent theme of this superbly acted docudrama.

The film premiered at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and then continued to impress both critics and audiences at other Festival events, including Copenhagen, Mar del Plata, Pusan, Hong Kong, Seattle, Taipei and Buenos Aires. The film won Audience Awards as Best Film at the Vancouver and Philadelphia Film Festivals, and Best Latin American Film prizes at the Mexico City and Bogota Film Festivals.

Through the eyes of the children in MACHUCA, we see how vulnerable life was for Chileans in 1973, when the Pinochet regime first became synonymous with military repression. Director Andres Wood was an 8-year-old in Santiago during the bloody coup, and brings an immediacy and intimacy to this engaging coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of a nation's descent into hell.

The film screens today at 4:00pm at the Vineyard Playhouse.

Sandy Mandelberger
Festivals Editor