FEMI (21th edition) : the rebirth of Chilean cinema

The 21th edition of the “Regional and International Film Festival of Guadeloupe” which took place from March 13 to 21, 2015 had chosen to honor the Chilean cinema and the fashion photographer and director native of Nigeria, Andrew Dosunmu. The latter who lives, at present, between New York and Lagos, had brought in its suitcases his last movie entitled “Mother of George” and made in 2013, which had been screened in “Sundance Film Festival” as well as in the “Maryland Movie Festival 2013”.

The famous director from Martinique Euzhan Palcy, author in particular of “La Rue Cases Nègres” and “Une Saison Blanche et Sèche”, had discussed with men, women and minors in jail, within the framework of”FÉMI in Walls”.

As for the delegation of Chile which had accepted the invitation of the FÉMI, it was led by Maria Paz Santibañez (pianist, and cultural attaché with the Embassy of Chile in France since 2014) and was made up of Marcela Said (director of “The Summer of Flying fish”), Pamela Pequeño (director, author and scriptwriter of the documentary (“O’Higgins’s Daughter”), Nicolás Lasnibat (director and scriptwriter, author of “Treinta Años”, winner in San Sebastián Festival).

In association with the embassy of France in Chile, the embassy of Chile in France and the “Chile’s Women Movies Festival”, the FÉMI had presented six movies showing various facets of this country shot by a new generation of filmmakers. Among the conferences, it had been noted those devoted to the Chilean cinema (evolution, characteristic) and preservation of regional languages, after the screening of the documentary film intitled “Dungun, the Language” by director Pamela Pequeño.

After the stop of Salvador Allende’s presidency (1970-1973) by Augusto Pinochet’s coup, the artistic production had been banned in this Latin American country.
Today, the Chilean cinema industry organizes itself with film schools, local film shoots and also foreign movies shoots.