Thu May 24 | 7:00 pm | PC

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Cine Chile Spotlight, Part 1

Director: Patricio Guzmán, France/Chile/Belgium/Spain, 2001, 109 minutes
English/Spanish with English subtitles

Augusto Pinochet, the general who overthrew President Salvador Allende of Chile in 1973, was the first dictator in Latin America –  or the world –  to be humbled by the international justice system since the Nuremberg trials.

In September 1998, Pinochet flew to London on a pleasure trip. He rested for a few days. He had tea with Margaret Thatcher. But, suddenly, he began experiencing back pain and underwent an operation in the London Clinic. Upon waking from surgery, he was arrested by the London police. Who was responsible for this?

This new film by Patricio Guzmán investigates the legal origins of the case in Spain –  where it began two years before Pinochet’s arrest. With the film’s protagonists, among them the prosecutor Carlos Castressana who filed the charges, and Judge Baltasar Garzón, who upheld them and issued the arrest warrant, The Pinochet Case explores how a small group of people in Madrid laid the groundwork for this incredible feat – catching a dictator 25 years after his rise to power.

Scotland Yard served the arrest warrant, and The Pinochet Case also follows the workings of the British legal system that ensued. The General spent 503 days under house arrest at an estate outside London, until Tony Blair’s government released him on grounds of ill health – but only after the House of Lords, in an historic decision with international repercussions, divested him of his legal immunity, ruling that even heads of state can be held accountable for crimes against humanity.

Winner –  Award of Merit in Film, 2003 Latin American Studies Association
Winner –  Golden Gate Award for Best Documentary, 2002 San Francisco International Film Festival
Winner –  Grand Prize, 2001 Marseille Festival of Documentary Film Premiere –  2001 Cannes Film Festival

Screening Partner

Cine Chile is a promotional initiative for contemporary Chilean Cinema in Canada; its main task is to present recent films with the purpose of creating a Canadian audience for Chilean Cinema. Cine Chile is also a liaison agent between industry participants in Canada and Chile with the aim to lead the way to a more fluent relationship in the light of a Co-Production Agreement Chile and Canada signed in 1995.