¡Viva Chile Mierda! (2013) & Flight of the Hummingbird (2019)
90 mins. +20 mins.
UK
Spanish and English (and English subtitles)
Director: Adrian Goocoylea
Two intimate documentaries intertwining family stories of Chilean life with land, history, technology, nation and identity:
¡Viva Chile Mierda!
Chile, 1974. Under the cloak of darkness Pinochet’s military intelligence service raid the home of the filmmaker’s aunt Gaby. She, together with her husband and brother, were blindfolded and taken to a secret military prison to be interrogated. For three weeks they were tortured and terrorized. No one knew where they were. Their children were kept under armed guard. Were it not for the help given to them by one young prison guard, they would not have coped. That guard was Andres ‘Papudo’ Valenzuela, who several years later would be the first military intelligence officer to admit to the crimes committed by the dictatorship.
Through intimate interviews, illustrations, animations and first person voice over, this film traces the lives of both prisoners and guard in order to reflect on the enduring effects of this traumatic history. Their stories shine light on larger issues of exile, national identity, truth and reconciliation.
Flight of the Hummingbird
In 1932, the filmmaker's great-uncle, Cyril Taylor, a commercial pilot who took aerial photographs of Buenos Aires for a living, flew across the Andes mountain range in the smallest ever open cockpit, single-engine plane. His flight was celebrated in the press in both South America and the UK, although it is now largely forgotten. What is the significance of such moments in the intertwined histories of photography and aviation? Taylor’s flight combined a spirit of adventure, an enthusiasm for technological progress, and a hard-nosed capitalist objective. Goycoolea’s film reflects on the interconnection of these qualities as modes of vision that shape both past and present. Flight of the Hummingbird recreates Taylor’s record-breaking journey using 3D animation and aerial drone cinematography of the Andes. Through an evocative first-person voiceover drawn from personal letters and documents in the Taylor family archive, Goycoolea dramatizes his great-uncle’s perspective during his daring flight. Flight of the Hummingbird uses Cyril’s story to reflect on how histories of flight and aerial photography can speak to current debates on drone photography and our inescapable culture of aerial imaging.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKER:
Adrian Goycoolea was born in Brazil to Chilean and British parents, and has lived in Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, New York City and the Midwest. Perhaps because of this diverse background, his films often address issues of location and identity, exploring the intersections of personal memory with social and political histories. His work ranges from short, experimental, single channel pieces to multi-channel art installations, as well as short and feature-length documentaries. Adrian has worked as a programmer and publicist at Anthology Film Archives in New York City, and his films and installations have been screened widely. Over the years, his work has been shown at film festivals such as the Rotterdam International Film Festival, The Moscow International Film Festival, BFI Flare: The London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Frameline: The San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, Document: International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival (Glasgow), FIDOCS: International Documentary Film Festival (Santiago) and at art galleries including The Artists' Space (NYC), Taller Boriqua (NYC), La Panaderia (Mexico City), and in locations as disparate as Anthology Film Archives and MTV.