One of Chile’s Most Important Documentarians, Beginning on Friday, September 10th
OVID will present the exclusive streaming premiere of the entire filmography of one of Chile’s and Latin America’s most important documentarians, Ignacio Agüero.
Agüero has been honored with many awards, and retrospectives of his films have been held around the world, including in Argentina (at BAFICI), Bolivia, France, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, and Spain.
Born in 1952, in Santiago, Chile, Agüero studied architecture, and then started film studies the year after the military coup of September 11, 1973. In 1988 he made the film that marked his career: 100 Children Waiting for a Train, awarded the First Prize for Documentary at the 1988 Havana Festival, but banned in Chile throughout the dictatorship.
While best known for his work as a documentary director, Aguero has also worked in advertising, made many telefilms, and has been an actor in numerous films, including several by Raúl Ruiz. His last two films This is the Way I Like It II, and I Never Climbed the Provincia, both won the Grand Prix at FIDMarseille (France), in 2016 and 2019 respectively. He is a film professor at the University of Chile and participates in the Zéro en Conduite organization running film workshops for children. As of 2021, he is working on two new films.
“Because the past is all we have. The future and the present are only in the past. We look at the sky and see the past. All this is very obvious. Any image that we imagine can only come from experience. The past is our working material.” — Ignacio Agüero
| All 11 films will be available on OVID.tv simultaneously as of Friday, September 10, 2021. All are EXCLUSIVE STREAMING PREMIERES. They are listed here in chronological order. |
| Under Construction Documentary Short, 1977, Chile A construction worker tells about his work as a plasterer in times when houses in entire neighborhoods are demolished to build new commercial zones, all as part of a new economic structure designed by the dictatorship of Pinochet. Not to Forget Documentary, 1982, Chile The women of the Maureira family tell of their experience searching for five men of their family all across Chile, after their arrest by the police, a few days after the military coup of 1973. After 6 years of searching, they found their relative’s bodies buried in a limestone mine, near their homes in Lonquén, a town near Santiago. Filmed secretly during the dictatorship, it was the first time in Chile that there was official evidence that a missing person was arrested and killed by state agencies, refuting the falsehood of all government information. This is the Way I Like It Documentary, 1985, Chile Director Ignacio Agüero interrupts the production of a film that is taking place in Chile during 1984 to ask the filmmakers what it is like to film in Chile under the Pinochet dictatorship. 100 Children Waiting for a Train Documentary, 1988, Chile Poetically tells the story of a group of Chilean children who discover a larger reality – and a different world – through the cinema. “Gracefully photographed and simply produced, the documentary captures the wonder of discovery as these children’s imaginations are tickled with celluloid magic and caring attention.” — In These Times  WINNER: Best Documentary, Havana Film FestivalWINNER: Best Documentary, OCIC Award, Cartagena Film Festival |
| Dreams of Ice Documentary, 1994, Chile Like Moby Dick’s Ishmael, a sailor takes a ship and goes from Antarctica to Spain, in a trip that transports an iceberg to Seville for the World Fair of 1992. In this voyage, mysterious things will happen, making him a victim of the hidden forces of icebergs. Dreams of Ice is a song of love to the fragility of nature and the human being. |
 WINNER: Havana Film Festival, Coral, Best Experimental Work |
| Under Construction (or The Place I Was Born No Longer Exists) Documentary, 2000, Chile In the Providencia Barrio of Santiago, Chile, a neighbor lives through the demolition of the house next door and the construction of a building in the same place, over a two-year period. Under Construction is about the passing of time and the transformation of a space where minor and major events occur: a death and a birth; neighborhoods disappearing; buildings being demolished and built; winters and springs passing. |
 WINNER: Santiago de Chile Documentary Festival, Grand Prize (FIDOCS)WINNER: Best Urban Thematic Documentary Docupolis Festival, Barcelona BAFICI, Buenos Aires, 2013 // Chosen among the 10 best films in Latin America by FICValdivia. |
| My Grandmother’s Mother Told My Grandmother Documentary, 2004, Chile The inhabitants of the Villa Alegre town, in the central zone of Chile, come together to investigate the history of their town, then put it on stage as a production. When they watch the play, they are amazed. A theatrical experience within a film. |
| Agustin’s Newspaper Documentary, 2008, Chile El Mercurio, the oldest newspaper in Chile, has been owned and operated since 1849 by the Edwards family. Its current owner, Agustin Edwards Eastman, has controlled the journal since 1956. With editions published in Santiago and Valparaiso, as well as twenty regional editions, Chile’s “newspaper of record” is also the largest news organization in the country. |
 Official Selection, Guadalajara Film Festival |
The Other Day
Documentary, 2012, Chile
The home of acclaimed Chilean filmmaker Ignacio Agüero is filled with objects that speak to both his family’s history and to the tumultuous history of his country. Seeking to make a quiet, personal film centered on his home and his memories, Agüero brings different aspects of contemporary Chilean society into the picture.
| This is the Way I Like It – II Documentary, 2016, Chile In This is the Way I Like It – shot during Pinochet’s dictatorship – Agüero asked his colleagues about what they were filming and whom they made their work for. Thirty years later, now with Chile under a democratic rule, the question has changed to “What is the essence of cinema?” This time, young Chilean filmmakers (and a young female director from Iran) are the ones who answer Agüero’s question. |
 NOMINEE: Premios Fénix (Fenix Film Awards), Premio Fénix Best DocumentaryWINNER: Grand Prix, International Film Festival Marseille |
| I Never Climbed the Provincia Documentary, 2019, Chile A 10-story building is built 127 meters from the filmmaker Ignacio Agüero’s house. Before, he could film the Andes from the roof of his home. One day, Agüero decides to meet those who live in the building. Wanting to know about the movements and histories of his neighbors sparks an interest on his own movements and history. “Quietly mixing observational street photography with ad hoc interviews with friends and neighbors, the filmmaker locates the forgotten microhistories of the buildings, businesses, and people in this small corner of the world, while also meditating on the shadowy legacy of Chile’s military dictatorship.” —The Film Stage |
 WINNER: Grand Prix, International Film Festival Marseille WINNER: Best Latin American Film, Mar del Plata Film Festival |
