Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Alarcón died last Saturday at the age of 70 in Moscow, Russia—where he lived since 1969—due to cancer. He directed twelve feature films, and was the winner of the Special Prize at the 1977 Moscow Film Festival for his debut feature Night Over Chile / La noche sobre Chile.
Born in Valparaiso, on January 14, 1949, Alarcón studied film at the prestigious film school Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography in the Soviet Union. After graduating, he tried to return to his native country but wasn’t able because of Pinochet’s reigning military dictatorship at the time.
After Night on Chile, which narrates the aftermath of the military coup, he directed the feature films Santa Esperanza (1980), La caída del cóndor / The Fall of the Condor (1982), and Jaguar (1986), an adaptation of the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa’s novel "The city and the dogs.”
He also directed KGB Los agentes también se enamoran (1991), La cicatriz (1999). His last film was El fotógrafo / The Photographer (2003), a romantic comedy set in Valparaíso, a few days before the beginning of the World Cup, following Simón, an ambitious photojournalist, who is obsessed with creating a seminal fotonovela.
