José Luis Torres Leiva

Lucía is a young woman who works as a seamstress in a factory and lives with her father in an old house in Santiago, Chile. The film occurs in December 2006 during the weeks that take place from the ex-dictator Pinochet’s funeral to Christmas Eve. Through the simple observation of Lucía’s daily life, the spectator is allowed access into a hidden and neglected world of a generation of Chileans striving to recover from the military dictatorship.

Is set in the figure of a transhumant muleteer who once a year takes more than a thousand sheep up into the heart of the Andes Mountains. Accompanied by six men and ten dogs, he crosses forests, cliffs and rivers in search of food for his livestock, regardless of the risk to his life that this effort entails.

After reading in the newspaper that a newborn baby was found in a dumpster, a teacher becomes obsessed with giving it a proper burial.

In the south of Chile on the Chiloé Island, Carlos Ruiz works as an operator in an industrial cannery. He is one of the cogs that makes the machine turn, except when he is a machine himself, like when he delivers blows on the punching-ball. A machine that dreams of glory. Because in his other life, Carlos is little-by-little becoming “the Guru”, who ceaselessly trains in what little leisure time he has so that he can win his match.

During one hot summer day, little things happen to the visitors and workers of an old thermal resort in southern Chile. Julieta, Francisco, Isa, Rodrigo, Ignacio, Mariana, Muriel, Gabriela, Eliseo, Norma, Alejandra and Claudio experience the long vacation hours in nature, sleeping in the sun, learning how to drive, cleaning the house, kissing for the first time, swimming at night or just walking and talking, while the day slowly unravels into small fragments of happiness and discovery.

A stately home, built in 1922, is now a dilapidated stage where memories and history are present in the old home movies starring those that once inhabited it.

Based on the book by author Marcelo Matthey, this short film narrates his own life in a style reminiscent of school compositions. His constant strolls through streets, houses and beaches are recorded in notes of what he saw, felt or thought during these wanderings or moments, but almost only recalling the processes, the timeline in which things occur and come to mind, the trail of associations coming one after the other, like the steps of a person walking along a street. Immediate impressions, fleeting moments normally lost in time and which are captured in the images and sounds of this film.

Alfonso is an old farmer who has returned home to tend to his son, who is gravely ill. He rediscovers his old house, where the woman who was once his wife still lives, with his daughter-in-law and grandson. The landscape that awaits him resembles a wasteland. Vast sugar cane plantations surround the house, producing perpetual clouds of ash. 17 years after abandoning them, Alfonso tries to fit back in and save his family.