Santiago in 2018 and the violent student protests highlight the ongoing state violence and criminalization of dissent in Diego Ayala and Aníbal Joffrey’s latest film, “Los Afectos,” which is in competition with nine Chilean projects at the Santiago International Film Festival (SanVic).
Having met in film school, this is their second feature film after their 2013 feature “Volantín Cortao”, which was selected for the Locarno “Carte Blanche” Festival and had its premiere at the Rome Film Festival.
Produced by Valentina Roblero Arellano and Francisca Merry at Orion Cinemas in Chile and co-produced by Incubadora in Ecuador, the film follows school inspector Benjamín (Gastón Salgado) amidst the turmoil as student resistance mounts and he grows bored with his daughter Karina’s (Catalina Ríos) best friend, Ivan (Gianluca Abarza), who encourages her daring activism. When she is killed by authorities during a protest, he is forced to reevaluate his long-held beliefs.
The project meticulously depicts the inner workings of the protagonist as he struggles with the strict responsibilities of his job while navigating the state-imposed violence that took the life of his daughter. In a collective commentary through individual self-discovery and collective mourning, the characters live under self-imposed and socially imposed constraints.
At the heart of this struggle during her teenage years, Roblero Arellano said, diverse “It was the exposure to a project that focused on the people who make up a community, combined with the sensitive realism that the directors work with in their cinematography, that caught my interest.”
“Since then, we have been working to move emotions as a slogan for struggle, transforming the difficult production process into a wonderful process of cinematic thought, where elements such as music appeared, disrupting language with cracks in reality,” she continued.
With no shortage of big-screen representation of the country's stubborn unrest, “The Affections” proves a unique, class-conscious dive into the consequences of clinging to ignorance that fuels hatred, and does so from the jarring, almost claustrophobic perspective of its tormented male protagonist and the teens he's supposed to care for.
“During the process of making the film, we always wanted to approach the scenes from the perspective of the characters’ intimacy. We were interested in seeing what happens in the high school hallway, in personal conversations, not in a full classroom. Coexistence is something we have always been interested in exploring in our films; in this case, it was interesting to read Humberto Maturana’s definition of education: ‘It is a transformation of coexistence,’” Ayala relayed.
The frenetic narrative also challenges the old, apathetic, absent-minded masculinity, as we see young men more organized and adaptable than their adult counterparts at several points throughout the film. The breakdown of father figures on screen contrasts with the strength of the encouraging empathy among the teenagers.
“The character of Benjamin, played wonderfully by Gastón Salgado, tries to address a generation that grew up in a model where masculinity abandons emotion and its excesses, but is faced with a new model, where young people are given more space for sensitivity, and how they can learn from that as well,” Ayala explained.
“This process is not immediate and involves difficult situations and big changes in perspective. Sometimes, there are things that can’t be taken back; you have to learn to live with them. In The Affections, there is a space to allow yourself to change within masculinity,” he added.
The novel features raw hip-hop scenes and spoken beats, channels for intense sadness and mild anger that elevate the narrative and support the ongoing transformation of the characters' personal and political traumas.
“The film is a collection of audio-visual genres, neither pure nor elegant, not interested in remaining ironic in its point of view, but rather positions itself as a hard-hitting cinema – one that has been beaten down many times – that is true to the moment in which we are living, in which it was filmed,” Joffrey reflects.
“The involvement of great artists like Gianluca and Sarah Hebe responds to this interest in exploring the possibilities of expression where realism has failed to confront the horror of what happened. Thus, musical sequences are born in search of a different depth, to reach real and important emotions,” he added.
Through this project, Ayala and Joffrey champion different perspectives. The film is of global importance, at a time when governments are seeking to restrict expression in regional independent cinema, threatening to silence communities most in need of fair representation and fueling the call for strength in numbers.
“A healthy ecosystem is one in which there is great diversity and coexistence of multiple forms of life. What is happening in many countries is very serious and these ecosystems are very diverse in their appearance. It is about seeing what Millie is doing in Argentina; I am saying that you do not have to go that far. I think this is a constant threat, and we need to create networks of global solidarity,” explained Giuffre.
“Such works are of great importance because they contrast with mass media and social networks, which represent a small percentage of the millionaire population, where images of the working class are reduced to moral judgments or charity. As filmmakers, we draw inspiration from our environment. In the words of the great Lucretia Martel, ‘the first reference must always be our own’.”
