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The Death of Pinochet (La Muerte de Pinochet)

Bettina Perut & Ivan Osnovikoff
Chile / 2011 / 67 min / Spanish with English subtitles

On December 10, 2006, General Pinochet dies unexpectedly in Santiago’s Military Hospital. For 24 hours, his death reawakens the political divisions that marked Chile’s recent history with death and violence. Using original footage and the testimonies of four characters who lived through that day of profound contrasts and shades of surrealism, the film relates the end of a key chapter in Chile’s history. A work between tragic and comic, surprising portrait of Chilean society.

The Death of Pinochet is one of the many films included in the catalogue of Spanish Film Club.

Bettina Perut and Iván Osnovikoff met in 1997 and co-directed Chichichi Lelele Martín Vargas de Chile (2000), observational documentary film about the come back of a fallen boxing idol and its impact on Chilean society. Between 2000 and 2002 they produced and directed A Man Aside (Un Hombre A Parte, 2002), deep and raw metaphor on human condition depicting the decline of Ricardo Liaño and his obsession to become a millionaire in his eighties. During 2003 and 2004 they directed and produced Clever Monkey Pinochet Versus La Moneda’s Pigs (El Astuto Mono Pinochet contra La Moneda de los Cerdos, 2004) a provocative experimentation on the 1973 Chilean military coup featuring child and youth reenacting the historical facts. In 2004 Perut and Osnovikoff moved to the United States for the making of Welcome to New York (2006), inverted ethnography in which the directors show their irreverent and sarcastic vision of the Capital of the World. In 2006 they went back to Chile and began the production of News (Noticias, 2009), observational film proposing a radical cinematic glance to the same reality depicted by the media. Afterwards, the directors made The Death of Pinochet (La Muerte de Pinochet, 2011) , sarcastic chronicle of the death and funerals of the former Chilean dictator.

Bettina Perut was born in Rome, Italy, in 1970.
Iván Osnovikoff was born in Puerto Montt, Chile, in 1966. They are now producing a new film called Surire. They have been objects of awards and retrospectives around the World.

Cine B Film Festival, Chile

- Best Feature

SANFIC, Chile

- Jury Special Award

Pärnu International Documentary and Anthropology Film Festival

- Best Experimental Documentary

The Film Society of Lincoln Center Latin Beat Film Festival

Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival BAFICI

IDFA

Museum of Modern Art, New York

Sao Paulo International Film Festival, Brazil

Gijón International Film Festival, Spain

La Habana Film Festival

Quotes

“Fun, provocative and over the top, the film explores in an intimate and raw way a side of Chilean history rarely shown on film.” - THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER 

“In (The Death of Pinochet…) politics highlights the contrasts between documentary and fiction, between staging and spontaneous record, between life and death, between individual and crowd.” - Beatriz Urraca, CINE DOCUMENTAL 

“The directors make visually literalist the notion of vox pops, creating a simple, blunt poetry of revelatory visual details.” - Michael Vazquez, HUFFPOST

“The film narrates the ending of a key chapter in Chilean history in an innovative, exciting way.” – WARSAW INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

“The documentary did capture the explosive energy in the streets following his death (Pinochet´s)” - Melissa Silvestri, CINESPECT