Desierto (2023)

The Newcomers

The story of two brothers who get involved with a sexy stripper and her boss, the nightclub king of Santiago, as told from three perspectives.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Chile '76

Chile, 1976. Carmen heads off to her beach house. When the family priest asks her to take care of a young man he is sheltering in secret, Carmen steps onto unexplored territories, away from the quiet life she is used to.

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.

La anunciada muerte de Willy Semler

Plot unavailable

Esmeralda Bay

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

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.

1988

In the winter of 1988, in the depths of the Iraq/Iran war, the border town of Halabja was attacked by chemical weapons with all its people and their different stories.

Crisis

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

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.

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.

Night of the Pencils

The Night of the Pencils was a series of kidnappings and forced disappearances, followed by the torture, rape, and murder of a number of young students during the last Argentine dictatorship (known as the National Reorganization Process). The kidnappings took place over the course of several days beginning on September 16, 1976.

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.

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.

Of Love and Shadows

Irene is a magazine editor living under the shadow of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. Francisco is a handsome photographer and he comes to Irene for a job. As a sympathizer with the underground resistance movement, Francisco opens her eyes and her heart to the atrocities being committed by the state.

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.

La Esmeralda 1879

Revolves around the naval Battle of Iquique between the Peruvian ironclad monitor 'Huáscar' and the Chilean wooden corvette 'Esmeralda'.

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.

After We Have Left Our Homes

Under a dictatorship that has banned music, a man hides a record until he is caught. Whilst paying for his crimes he stumbles across a repository of confiscated items, leading to events that will change the course of history.

Talvez o Vento Saiba seu Nome

Plot unavailable

Red Rain

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

A Cab for Three

A taxi driver is given a difficult choice from 2 small time crooks: drive them around while they rob, or get locked up in the trunk.

Fight for Us

In 1985, in the obscure town of Dolores, the Orapronobis, a cult under the leadership of Kumander Kontra, murders a foreign priest who gave the last rites to an alleged rebel, who was also executed by the same group.

The Man Standing Next

When the investigation of 'Koreagate' takes place, Park Yong-gak, a former KCIA director who knows everything about the government's operations, heads to the United States in exile.

The March of Fools

The story is set in the 1970s during the period of military dictatorship. Schools were frequently closed and society seemed to face bleak prospects on all fronts. Nonetheless, Byung-tae, a college student, enjoys pursuing romance in blind group dates. It's during one of these ventures that he meets Young-ja, a French literature student.

Coronation

The elderly heir of a formerly wealthy and respected Chilean family, Andres, suffers from decadence and solitude. He hires young Estela in order to look after his tiranic and almost crazy grandmother. The differences in class and age don't stop Andres from courting Estela, whose fiancé Mario tries to make some money with the passions of his well-off rival. The suffocating atmosphere of the run-down mansion in the outskirts of Santiago represents the deterioration of the bourgeoisie, and sets the scene for the total collapse of Andres.

Illiterate

Ximena is an illiterate woman in her fifties, who has learned to live on her own to keep her illiteracy as a secret. Jackeline, is a young unemployed elementary school teacher, who tries to convince Ximena to take reading classes. Persuading her proves to be an almost impossible task, till one day, Jackeline finds something Ximena has been keeping as her only treasure since she was a child: a letter Ximena's father left when he abandoned her many years before. Thus, the two women embark on a learning journey where they discover that there are many ways of being illiterate, and that not knowing how to read is just one of them.

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.

The Night & The Universe

A middle class couple in Chile at the night that Cecilia Bolocco becomes Miss Universe. A student film by Gabriel Lizama AKA Liz Taylor.

The Quispe Girls

Based on a true story occurred in 1974, this is the tale of sisters Justa, Lucia, and Luciana Quispe, sheperds in the Chilean altiplano who lead a solitary life. A visitor brings news about a law that might change their way of living. This event forces the women to question their existence and relentlessly brings them to a tragic end.

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.

Se busca novio… para mi mujer

Daniel reached the limit of his patience with his wife. The extremely temperamental Natalia is always protesting. But Daniel does not have the courage to ask for a divorce. Thus, he accepts the advice of his friends to hire a famous local Don Juan to seduce his wife and be she who deserted him.

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.

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.

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.

Standard

Does someone remember that project of López Rega’s which, in 1975, thought up the construction of a Great Homeland Altar where all mythical figures of Argentine history could be in the same building? From San Martín to Perón on his pinto horse. From the Billiken stamps of our childhood to Libertad Leblanc’s tits of our teenage years. All clichés of Argentine-ness gathered under one roof. But the construction delays. Workers entertain themselves with their own masturbatory drives. Or is it that Argentina is an impossibie construction? Always about to begin. always displaying great projects, great plans that never come to fruition. A second-rate country that hides its fundamental vacuity behind monuments. in Acha’s cinema, second-rateness is exposed, shown in all its lying pomposity.

Galeria F

Plot unavailable

First Born

While Thomas spends his last weekend in Chile with his family, before traveling abroad for the first time, a flaw in the sewage system produces a flood of smelly water. The problem shows the essence of family relationships.

El Día de mi Independencia

Manuela dreams of winning the "best folkloric dress" contest in the commemoration of Independence Day at school. Meanwhile, her brother Gabo takes the risk of protesting in the streets to end the dictatorship.

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.

Sombras de Resistencia

Plot unavailable

Memorándum

Plot unavailable

Cuarto de Hora

Alex (25), is a young Haitian man living in Chile who is undocumented and does not speak Spanish. After a car accident he is helped and translated by Daniela (50), a passerby with whom he is going to live what could be his last 15 minutes of life.

El Viaje

Plot unavailable

Chicha, esperanza y dolor

Plot unavailable

The Morning that changed Tomorrow

Chile, a prosperous and abundant country, wakes up on the morning of September 11, 1973, to say goodbye to the future and embrace the crimes along with the social, political and cultural decline, portrayed through archival material of the time.

El cumple de la abuela

The Salerno family is celebrating. It's Grandma Adela's birthday. However, in a conversation between women, Adela reveals a familiar truth that had never come to light.

Fascism in Colour

After the World War I, Mussolini's perspective on life is severely altered; once a willful socialist reformer, now obsessed with the idea of power, he founds the National Fascist Party in 1921 and assumes political power in 1922, becoming the Duce, dictator of Italy. His success encourages Hitler to take power in Germany in 1933, opening the dark road to World War II. (Originally released as a two-part miniseries. Includes colorized archival footage.)

The Beautician and the Beast

A New York City beautician is mistakenly hired as the school teacher for the children of the president of a small Eastern European country.

Sex with Love

In Santiago, Chile, the schoolteacher Luisa proposes a debate about sex with the parents of her students with the intention of giving classes about sex education to the youngsters.