The Night & The Universe (2010)

The Eye on the Nape

This is the story of Pablo, a young uruguayan exiled in México, whose father was disappeared during the military dictatorship.

Missing

Based on the real-life experiences of Ed Horman. A conservative American businessman travels to Chile to investigate the sudden disappearance of his son after a military takeover. Accompanied by his son's wife he uncovers a trail of cover-ups that implicate the US State department which supports the dictatorship.

In the Time of the Butterflies

Based on the book by Julia Alvarez. Three sisters become activists during the Dominican Republic's Trujillo regime when members of their family are killed by the government's troops.

Esmeralda Bay

A priest secretly leads rebels in their struggle against the corrupt military dictatorship of the Central American country of Puerto Santo.

Salvador

In 1980, an American journalist covering the Salvadoran Civil War becomes entangled with both the leftist guerrilla groups and the right-wing military dictatorship while trying to rescue his girlfriend and her children.

The Messenger

Vera, imprisoned at a military fortress during the dictatorship, 1969, get to know a soldier, Armando, who, in the face of torture, decides to take messages from Vera to his family and establishes an affective relationship with D. Maria, Vera’s mother. Despite the horrors of the time, the film works on this possibility of a dialogue between two lonely and lost human beings: a high-middle-class lady and a young southerner of rural origin. Today, Vera, aged 70, is a professor at the university, and debates with her students about politics, forgiveness and Hannah Arendt.

Voltei!

Brazil, 2030. The sisters Alayr and Sabrina are hearing on the cell radio the judgment that could change the course of a country "without energy". They are surprised by Fátima, the sister who returns from the dead to fraternize on this historic night.

The Last King of Scotland

Young Scottish doctor, Nicholas Garrigan decides it's time for an adventure after he finishes his formal education, so he decides to try his luck in Uganda, and arrives during the downfall of President Obote. General Idi Amin comes to power and asks Garrigan to become his personal doctor.

The Motorcycle Diaries

Based on the journals of Che Guevara, leader of the Cuban Revolution. In his memoirs, Guevara recounts adventures he and best friend Alberto Granado had while crossing South America by motorcycle in the early 1950s.

A Fantastic Woman

Marina's life is thrown into turmoil following the death of her partner. Mourning the loss of the man she loved, she finds herself under intense scrutiny from those with no regard for her privacy.

The Battle

21 sequence shots depict moments in a defining night of the Battle of Rua Maria Antônia, in October 1968, from the point of view of the students and professors of the Left-wing Student Movement, in the Philosophy Faculty building of USP.

My Name is Bruce

An unemployed man wanders the streets of Santiago de Chile in the 80s (Pinochet's Chile), looking for a chance to be a hero. In an old cinema in the center of the city, it may has his opportunity. A student film by Gabriel Lizama AKA Liz Taylor.

El Viaje

Plot unavailable

Designation of Origin

The small town of San Carlos suffers an atrocious injustice: the neighboring city of Chillán snatches from them the prize for the "Best Longaniza in Chile". Faced with this blatant theft, a group of people from San Carlos organizes a powerful social movement, which aims to obtain the precious "Denomination of Origin" for their longaniza sausages, and thus repair the damage and recover the dignity of their beloved town.

Machuca

Santiago, capital of Chile during the Marxist government of elected, highly controversial president Salvador Allende. Father McEnroe supports his leftist views by introducing a program at the prestigious "collegio" (Catholic prep school) St. Patrick to allow free admission of some proletarian kids. One of them is Pedro Machuca, slum-raised son of the cleaning lady in Gonzalo Infante's liberal-bourgeois home. Yet the new classmates become buddies, paradoxically protesting together as Gonzalo gets adopted by Pedro's slum family and gang. But the adults spoil that too, not in the least when general Pinochet's coup ousts Allende, and supporters such as McEnroe.

Death and the Maiden

A political activist is convinced that her guest is a man who once tortured her for the government.

Up to the World

Davide and Loris are brothers and live in a very small village in the north of Italy. While Davide is eighteen years old and gay, Loris is almost thirty and doesn't know anything about his brother's sexuality.

In Bed

It all begins at a party in Santiago, Chile, when a seemingly innocent gesture -- the offer of a ride home -- ends in a passionate night of lovemaking and intense conversation for young singles Bruno and Daniela. Shacked up at a flea-bitten motel for a one-night stand, the pair lingers deep into the night, alternating between powerful physical encounters and an ever-deepening emotional connection.

The Maid

Raquel has been the live-in housekeeper for a kind, reasonably wealthy family for half her life, and the joyless repetition of the job has begun to take its toll. Increasingly dependent on painkillers, Raquel resorts to pranks and childish avoidance to antagonize the family’s college-age daughter and a procession of new servants, all in the hopes of protecting her precarious power within the home. Her antics successfully push everyone away, until new maid Lucy actually pushes back.

Waking the Dead

A congressional candidate questions his sanity after seeing the love of his life, presumed dead, suddenly emerge.

Beast

Inspired by real events, "Bestia" enters the life of a secret police agent in the military dictatorship in Chile. The relationship with her dog, her body, her fears and frustrations, reveal a macabre fracture in her mind and a country.

Polar

When a retiring assassin realizes that he is the target of a hit, he winds up back in the game going head to head with a gang of younger, ruthless killers.

The South

After the end of the military dictatorship in Argentina in 1983, Floreal is released from prison. Instead of returning to his wife, he wanders through the night of Buenos Aires. He meets some people from his past–most of which are only imaginary–and remembers the events of his imprisonment.

Trauma

Four friends visit a rural locality of Chile, are brutally attacked by a man and his son. After not finding help in the town, they decide to confront these men with the help of a pair of policemen. But in this way, they will discover that their attackers have in their blood the direct legacy of the darkest period of Chilean history and will have to face the most brutal enemy.

The 33

Based on the true story of the collapse of a mine in San Jose, Chile—that left 33 miners isolated underground for 69 days.

Tony Manero

A man is obsessed with John Travolta's disco dancing character from "Saturday Night Fever".

Talvez o Vento Saiba seu Nome

Plot unavailable

The Secret Agent

Brazil, 1977. Marcelo, a technology expert in his early 40s, is on the run. He arrives in Recife during carnival week, hoping to reunite with his son but soon realizes that the city is far from being the non violent refuge he seeks.

Desierto

Plot unavailable

The Wolf House

After escaping from a religious colony in Chile, Maria seeks shelter in a mansion where she’s taken in by two pigs, its only inhabitants. Like in a stop-motion dream, the universe of the house reacts to her feelings. The animals slowly morph into humans and the house into a dark, menacing world.

Purple Dictatorship

Yeda, the green-faced woman, sells homemade bread to support the house where she lives with her sick husband. Through the context of green-faced people, we know the reality of those who live on the fringes of a purple-faced society.

When The Motherland Is Knocking At Your Door

Life under an oppressive dictatorship. Where citizens surrender themselves to the regime, become the part of the system and let go their freedom and any rights.

April Captains

Story of the 1974 coup that overthrew the right-wing Portuguese dictatorship--which continued the fascist policies of long-time dictator Antonio Salazar--and of two young army captains who were involved in it.

Sombras de Resistencia

Plot unavailable

Colonia

A young woman's desperate search for her abducted boyfriend draws her into the infamous Colonia Dignidad, a sect nobody ever escaped from.

Entranced Earth

Eldorado, a fictitious country in America, is sparkling with the internal struggle for political power. In the eye of this social convulsion, the jaded journalist Paulo Martins opposes two equally corrupt political candidates: a pseudopopulist and a conservative. In this context, Paulo is torn between the madness of the elite and the blind submission of the masses. But, in this complex tropical reality, nothing really is what it seems to be.

The Crossing of the Andes

Buenos Aires, 1880. A journalist interviews Manuel Esteban Corvalán, one of the last living men who crossed the Andes in 1817 with José de San Martín, during the Argentinian and Chilean wars of independence, as one of his secretaries, when he was only 15 years old.

Memorándum

Plot unavailable

Mutt

Over the course of a single hectic day in New York City, three people from Feña's past are thrust back into his life: his foreign father, his straight ex-boyfriend, and his 13-year old half-sister. Having lost touch since transitioning from female to male, Feña must navigate the new dynamics of these old relationships while tackling the day-to-day challenges that come with living a life in-between.

Until Tomorrow, Comrades

Portugal, 1944. In a country oppressed by a brutal dictatorship, there are those who resist and mobilize the people to fight for bread and freedom, even if it cost them prison, torture or their lives.

Crisis

An American doctor gets caught in the middle of a revolution when he's forced to operate on a South American dictator.

and Adam and

From the depths of the sea is born Adam, a young man who searches the world for the place to which he belongs. Walking along the beach, he meets another child like him and they become friends. As an adult, the child becomes a man who tries to find the woman, his counterpart. Harassed by the beings of the world, he sees it through dreams and this helps him to recover from his evil.

The Summer of the Electric Lion

In a house far from Santiago de Chile, little Alonso tries to change the fate of his sister Daniela, still just a child, who is about to become the seventh wife of the Lion of Judah, a supposed prophet, leader of a cult, who apparently provides electricity when he is touched.

The Painting Lesson

In Chile, during the 60´s, the son of a poor single teenage girl turns out to be a gifted painter. The man to discover his talent is the owner of the drugstore that lies in the outskirts of the small rural town, next to the railroad. He himself is an amateur painter who will try to make the boy into a great artist, like all the ones in his art books. From the pharmacists point of view in his old age, unfolds the story of this young boy who could have become a great art genius, had he not disappeared at the age of 13, along with all his works, on September 11th 1973, the day of the coupe d´état.

Julio Begins in July

This is the story of a teenager at the turn of the century in the conservative higher classes of Chile and the initiation rites in his society.

No

In 1988, Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet, due to international pressure, is forced to call a plebiscite on his presidency. The country will vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to Pinochet extending his rule for another eight years. Opposition leaders for the ‘No’ vote persuade a brash young advertising executive, René Saavedra, to spearhead their campaign. Against all odds, with scant resources and while under scrutiny by the despot’s minions, Saavedra and his team devise an audacious plan to win the election and set Chile free.

Red Rain

Military leader is appointed to local government, becomes overly despotic in his leadership.

Three Sad Tigers

A glimpse at the few days and nights in the lives of a brother and sister, Amanda and Tito, in Santiago’s semi-criminal underworld. A rambling portrait of Chilean society.

Repentance

The day after his funeral, the corpse of Varlam Aravidze, the mayor of a small Georgian town, turns up in his son's garden. Although it is secretly reburied, the corpse keeps returning until the police capture the local woman who is responsible. This woman says that Varlam should never be laid to rest since his Stalin-like reign of terror led to the disappearance of her family and friends.

The White King

Djata is a care-free 12-year-old growing up in a brutal dictatorship shut off from the outside world. When the government imprisons his father, Peter, and Djata and his mother Hannah are labeled traitors, the boy will not rest until he sees his father again.

He Hated Pigeons

A young man travels from the Northern Atacama Desert to the southern Patagonian edge of Chile on a cathartic journey of the spirit and to fulfill the wish of his mysteriously deceased lover.