Cinélatino: "Nidal", when Chile concretes on sand

This pequen, a little daytime owl, is one of the main characters in the documentary Nidal by Josefina Pérez-Garcia and Felipe Sigala, presented in the Discoveries section of the Rencontres Cinélatino de Toulouse 2022. © Cinelatino 2022

Text by: Isabelle Le Gonidec

4 mins

Cinélatino meetings allow young generations of filmmakers to discuss and meet more experienced elders.

And for the public to see the great vitality of Latin American cinema.

All genres combined, the next generation is assured, against all odds.

A succession that blurs the tracks of linear narrative, experiments with new forms of narrative, eraser and refinement.

This is the case of the documentary

, produced by a collective of five young Chilean filmmakers.

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From our special correspondent in Toulouse,

Flowing sand, dunes, birds... and the irruption of engine noises, the roar of 4x4 cars, the panic of owls... We are in the center of Chile, on the Pacific coast, in the region of Valparaiso, Concón, Ventana... On the natural side, a rocky seaside landscape, lagoons populated by waders, sea elephants, small woolly horses grazing on the grass of the salt marshes... There are birds, many birds, cousins ​​of those on our coasts, plovers who trot after the wave which withdraws to swallow the worms.

There is also a fishing port with small colorful coastal fishing boats.

It's the feast of San Pedro, the patron saint of fishermen in Chile.

There are bangs, folk dances and masks.

All that was, tell us Josefina Perez-Garcia and Felipe Sigala, the two directors and members of the

collective (the local name of the Grand Duke of Magellan) who made the film.

Because it no longer exists or just shreds.

The sand against the concrete, the horizon against the walls 

Man has invaded this natural space to install factories, buildings, a railway line, leisure areas.

The sand, alive in the first shots of the film, has become concrete, cement, frozen, hard.

The horizontality of the coast and the sea contrasts with the impressive verticality of the walls of thirty-storey buildings (at first sight) glued to each other.

The camera catches a man taking a break on his small balcony and we wonder what his horizon might be.

No voice-over commentary, intelligible human voice.

The soundtrack of this film is the cries of birds and the noises caused by human activities: excavators, backhoes, cars, this endless train whose creaking axles also seem to make the chair on which the viewer is seated vibrate.

The characters in the movie?

It's this couple of pretty little owls, “

 ” Josefina explains to us, who are terrified to see how the diggers are getting closer to the nest (which gave the film its title) that they have dug in the sand.

It is these elephant seals that warm themselves on the rocks of this sea from which come out large pipes that will supply factories whose flares light up the night.

These are the waders in search of food under a kind of cement pier where tourists take their picture.

“

The area of ​​sacrifice

 ”

Nidal

, school film already presented in several festivals, depicts the disappearance of a natural environment to the benefit of human activities.

A phagocytation in progress underlined by the assembly.

Neither the machines nor the man take a break.

We are here in a region that is both very residential in Chile and very industrialized (glass industry, oil, lithium) to the point of endangering the health of the inhabitants, the directors explain to us.

It is called in Chile " 

 ", the area of ​​sacrifice.

And yet people bathe in the middle of these huge pipes that come out of the sea, take their holidays there, buy apartments there.

In Chile, there is an injunction to property for the middle classes and the purchase of a property by the sea is valued and rewarding, hence this appetite for construction, explain the two directors.

Few spaces are resisting, especially since there is still no real regulation in terms of environmental protection and urban planning.

And how can one also build on this coast of dunes in such an earthquake-prone country?

Can't we also see here the symbol of a consumerist headlong rush in a country that wants to be the “tiger” of Latin America?

The silhouette of the couple of little owls stands out against the light on the piles of concrete, the nest has been destroyed.

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