Penal Cordillera’ (2023) is in competition for the Sutherland Award, Best First Feature.  The film is a moving study of a group of five top military prisoners, who have 800 years of sentencing between them for crimes against humanity and human right’s abuses during the Pinochet Military Dictatorship.

Held at an elite prison facility at the foot of the Andes, an interview by one of the Generals to a TV channel, reveals their cushy conditions causing outrage. This threatens them with the loss of their privileges, leading to friction and fury among the other four prisoners, unravelling a delirium as they fight to remain and avoid being transferred to a high security jail.

The five Miltary prisoners- Penal Cordillera 

Carmona previously filmed two shorts including: ‘Shakespeare’s Dream in Constantinople’ (2013) “where an inglorious situation arises in a bar taking the form of one of Shakespeare’s best- known scenes… the rest is silence” and followed that with ‘Shrimps have their Hearts on their Heads’ (2014)   

A filmmaker and a playwright, Felipe Carmona was supported by the Chilean Film Fund on various occasions. He participated in the Berlinale Talents in Buenos Aires and he had the good fortune that the Fundación Carolina in Madrid helped him to complete the script for his first feature, ‘Penal Cordillera’ (2023) (Prison in the Andes), eventually shot with support from Chile, Brazil, Argentina. France, Spain and Mexico.

Carmona, aware of the absurdity of their period at the elite jail, questions how the military prisoners lived there: “What do they talk about behind those walls? What are their thoughts so they walk those gardens?  Do they have nightmares at midnight?”

With this premise in mind, he wrote his script, touching on the absurd, humour and the surreal environment.  He tried to understand and allow the character to be who they were, without judgement or prejudice, as much for the prisoners, as for the guards, and the victims of their brutality after the coup.  Carmona explains: -

“It was a long process that expanded during the pandemic. I wanted to write a script about Chile and I was fortunate that one of the persons who assessed my script taught me a great deal.  I owe a lot of the authenticity & my particular approach to Argentine Alejandro Fadel, Pablo Trapero’s scriptwriter. He helped me see that in Chile, we have tended to write with the [factual] newspaper beside us when based on real events, with realistic and documentary elements. We realized we had to open up a different format and different aesthetic [to capture the drama]. I was lucky to obtain support from the Carolina Foundation in Madrid that helped me finish the script.”

When it came to the dialogues, we had more time and it was very entertaining as being Chileans, we tend to speak quite badly and of course, these particular characters were solemn, highly educated and they spoke in a very different way. I got to like that solemnity.

“From their point of view, they thought they had done the right thing.  There is also the contrast with the young guards who are soldiers and accustomed to respect authority. So, we have the interesting situation where the guards appear to be in awe of their prisoners. Later, they talked about how much they had learned from them.

The film is both subtle and absurd, especially the first hour or so – there’s irony in the situation of a group of guards, who almost feel privileged to be guarding these VIPs, so famous and aristocratic that they considered themselves even above their own colleagues in other jails.

In ‘Penal Cordillera’ there are two deaths among the guards: -

“The guard’s union is the one with the highest rate of suicides in Chile.  We deliberately left it vague so that it left a feeling of doubt, but clearly it was a suicide. The second one was clearly a murder but nothing happened, they did not even discover the body. At that point, they were all leaving the Andes Prison, packing up, so maybe the body just remained there, to rot.  Later Navarrette [the guard] is watching the river, so maybe he disposed of it in the fast-flowing waters.”

‘Penal Cordillera’ was not filmed in the actual original location, but near Santiago: -

“We filmed on the outskirts of Santiago de Chile, around one and a half hours away.  We used three locations to act as one. A wealthy family’s house was up for sale with all its contents. It has masses of paintings and ornaments so we rented it. In effect, the Art Director had to remove painting and things as there was far too much.   The field where the gendarmes exercised is a Christian Association leisure centre.  Ironically, only two weeks ago, we discovered that it was an unknown clandestine torture base. We found this blood-curdling and horrific. So now, the ending [of my film] with the guard mowing the lawn and the pick-up truck, has taken on a completely different meaning.”

Bastián Bodenföfer as Miguel Krassnoff training the guards 

Carmona is clear that in casting the film he was not trying to find look-alikes or be too realistic. The aim was not to imitate. Nevertheless, some of the actors do resemble their characters, in particular Hugo Medina who plays General Manuel Contreras, and Bastián Bodenhöfer, who plays fitness freak prisoner Miguel Krassnoff.  In Chile, as in so many countries, there are few parts for older actors, so these professionals with a wealth of experience in film and theatre were “thrilled with the script and the opportunity even with all our conditions.”

 “It was very moving because people ask if it was hard to work with professionals [on my first feature] who have such a wealth of experience, but it was the other way around, because exactly due to that experience they are easy to work with. They respect the director, regardless of age differences and experience. Obviously, it was a great experience and we’re delighted with the casting and have noticed that the people who see the film, each have their own favourite actor. No one stole the show in this film!”

One of the characters, in his late 80s, was suffering from dementia symptoms, despite moments of lucidity. This was Brigadier Pedro Espinoza Bravo, who like his co-prisoners had been active in the DINA (Secret Intelligence service) responsible for multiple violations of Human Rights and found to have participated in the notorious Caravan of Death, led by General Sergio Areliano Stark.  This Chilean death squad, though initially set up to investigate, ended up being responsible for assassinating at least 97 people across the country. Augusto Pinochet was personally indicted in 2002 but died before the verdict.  Caroma believes Espinoza’s dementia has other origins.

“I read that his dementia was the result of the huge weight of his guilt that was fogging his brain.”

If that was the case, then he was probably the only one who suffered with a conscience. For these prisoners vehemently believed their actions had been justified. Despite this there are ironical and absurd moments: -

“I kept finding things that seemed absurd and mad, as if they were fiction. These prisoners watched a lot of films, in particular they watched a series about themselves which was done by Andrés Wood, [called ECO DEL DESIERTO 2013(Caravan of Death)].  This miniseries from 2013, relates the story of Carmen Hertz, a human rights lawyer [and her experiences with the Caravan of Death].  They laughed watching themselves on screen. 

We used the quote from the Wasteland by TS Elliot at the end, because General Mena liked to read poetry and wrote very well himself. It’s also true that one of them would read esoteric material to the guards, trying to persuade himself that hell did not exist and that there were super planets in the universe.  I believe he was so terrified of ending up in Hell, that he invented that theory to prove Hell did not exist!”

The Character of Navarrette, one of the guards who gets closest to the Generals, was initially based on two people. These are individuals who, being born in tiny villages with minimal prospects, usually join the army or become policemen, to get some work stability in their lives.

“I had a neighbour who lived a block away, who was also called Navarrette. He was hard working, but timid. Eventually, he went to Santiago to work as a prison guard. He’d come back to visit every so often to visit his grandparents. They were very proud of him but his brother was an alcoholic and a few years later, the alcoholic brother murdered his grandparents. So, you had the ironical situation of a prison guard guarding his own brother!

His character also emerged from an interview that we did about one of the gendarmes who cared for the generals and who got so fond of them, that even after they were moved, he kept in touch via Whatsapp. They had established a bond that was inevitable and he told us about how much he enjoyed being with them because he had learned so much. They would tell him stories…in the end they were all prisoners.”  

Carmona was particular about his choice for the camera and sound design. His cinematographer is, in fact, his slightly older first cousin, with whom he has shared an obsessive passion for the movies since they were kids. They already wondered, then, if they would ever be able to make films of their own and they succeeded.   

“I gave myself the liberty to rewrite the script with a lot of atmospheric description, also for the lighting. This also helped Maria Portugal, who wrote the original sound track in Brazil. I tried to describe the nature of those places: the winds, the mountains [ and the trees]. For instance, if the guards needed to patrol at night, they should feel wary and a sense of fear, being surrounded by that forest. So, I wanted a night breeze and lights effects. I am pleased with the result.”

Are Carmona’s films always going to be political? He feels that it is inevitable, as all genres will overflow and political elements will find their way in. He was particularly moved when an elderly Ukrainian gentleman approached him after the premiere screening at the BFI London Film Festival, to tell him how much he understood the film Penal Cordillera as it echoed the violence suffered by so many in his country under the Soviets after WW2.   If that universality prevails, the film should reach far.

The film will be screened in Chile at the end of November 2023. The situation there is forever volatile.  In 2019, when the demonstrations for a new constitution took place, Carmona was in Madrid and he feared his film would no longer have relevance as it talks about the continuous legacy from the dictatorship, a legacy that never closes. But then when the vote took place, the opposition won.

“Now they are re-writing the constitution with the Republican party, which is really the party that supports Pinochetism. So, we’re going backwards. This new draft is even worse that the original one that we wanted to change!   Sadly, they’re trying to create the constitution as if we were in Finland.  The problem is that they’re not dealing with the inequalities that we have in Latin America. A basic requirement! This is not a Nordic country where the preoccupations can reside in mundane issues, here many people are unable to live with even the most basic dignity.”

Felipe Carmona has now started work on his second feature. Also loosely based on real events, in this case, Mariana Callejas, who used to hold literary soirées in her home during the dictatorship: 

“I have starting writing my second feature.  It starts on an absurd basis, that’s also violent, about an Opus Dei priest who’s also a literary critic. It’s inspired by a real person in Chile, who ends up going to clandestine gatherings in the 1980s with other intellectuals in Santiago at the home of Mariana Callejas.  She would invite everyone to her soirées including many famous writers and they would recite poetry during the dictatorship, even during the curfews. She was married to a mysterious North American.  Years later, it came out that he was a CIA agent who was working in the basement of the [same] house where he would torture and experiment with chemicals, while she held parties upstairs.”

Everything seems fine on the surface, they brought out the champagne  but shadows lurked beneath.