MAFI Collective
Chile | 2014 | 60 min
International Premiere
Language : Spanish
Subtitles : English, French
A collective undertaking, this film shot during the final campaign of the presidential election held in autumn 2013 in Chile, with its backdrop of the most important social movement the country has seen in the past twenty-five years, provides a testimony on the emptiness of political discourse that is as precious as it is precise.
Demonstrators march while an election poster floats in the foreground: The face of Michelle Bachelet, the presidential candidate, has been carefully cut out and hangs, barely lifted by a light breeze. A meaningful image – followed closely by Franco Parisi’s “make-up” session before appearing on TV a few minutes later – from the final campaign of the Chilean presidential election of autumn 2013. A collective of filmmakers wanted to document it, with its backdrop of the most important social movement the country has seen in 25 years. Propaganda makes a virtue of the fixed shot, a cinematographic response to the false movements of the five candidates committed to the never-ending chasing of votes. As the fateful date draws ever closer, the bodies of the politicians become increasingly virtual, like a mere reflection reverberating on a multitude of screens. And we can’t stop ourselves from thinking about Pasolini’s famous “fireflies” prediction when, back in 1975, he wrote of the Christian Democrats: “With their robotic actions and their smiles, (…) they have become like funeral masks. I’m certain that if you removed these masks, you would not even find a pile of bones and ashes, only a void.”
Emmanuel Chicon