FIDOCS, the International Documentary Festival of Santiago, has premiered a special commemorative short film to celebrate its 25th edition that will take place in a hybrid mode, with in-person and online screenings, December 1-7 in Chile. The trailer, roughly translated as Revolutions Also Get Cold (As Revoluções Também Têm Frio), was made by Portuguese filmmaker Catarina Vasconcelos, whose acclaimed debut feature, The Metamorphosis of Birds, played in numerous film festivals.
Using the iconic song "Grândola, Vila Morena" by Zeca Afonso, which was a symbol of protest during the 1974 revolution that brought democracy to Portugal, the short film is a love letter to the festival and to Chile, which has seen mass social protests in the past two years, and is in the middle of a major political transformation having voted for a new constitution. The film is an allegory for the need to take care of revolutions as if they were people.
“I always thought that starting a revolution with a song was a sign for the sort of democracy Portugal was dreaming of: a revolution that was meant to hear the people's voices. But revolutions, like people, get sick, have ups and downs, and get cold. So, I think that we need to take care of them,” explained the director in a statement.
One of the leading documentary film festivals in Latin America, FIDOCS was founded in 1997 by renowned master documentarian Patricio Guzmán (The Battle of Chile trilogy, Nostalgia for the Light). “A documentary film festival is a tribute to the adventure of the man on the land,” said the filmmaker, who also served as the first director of the festival. Originally called the International Documentary Film Festival, the event changed its name in 2003, and serves as a leading national and regional platform for international non-fiction cinema.
The 25th anniversary edition of FIDOCS will kick off with Cow by English director Andrea Arnold, and in addition to its international and national competitions, it will feature a special retrospective of the late American feminist and queer experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer.
Watch the short film:
