Carmen Castillo
France, Chile | 2007 | 167 min
Language : Spanish
Subtitles : English, French
On Santa Fé Street in Santiago in Chile, the director Carmen Castillo was injured and her companion killed while fighting in resistance to the Pinochet dictator- ship in the 1970s. A period marked by violence, clashes and torture in the name of the struggle for freedom. Many militants of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), like the director, were expelled from Chile, and found refuge elsewhere or lived clandestinely. The film is a return to the country and also a look at the past, analysed and experienced through the filter of the present. Coming back to these places filled with pain 30 years later, meeting comrades and family, Castillo questions the sense and the justice of a struggle that caused so much suffering. It is a journey into personal and collective history, imbued with tragedy but also with the lucid- ity necessary for successful assimilation. Calle Santa Fe is an indispensable restorative and liberating act that is part of the essential remembrance required by Chilean history.
Jasmin Basic
