MOTHER, COUNTRY [OmeU] Regisseur anwesend!

UK - Chile, 2024, R: Pablo Navarrete, 114 min.

A powerful personal and political reckoning, MOTHER, COUNTRY follows British-Chilean filmmaker Pablo Navarrete as he returns to Chile with his parents nearly 50 years after they were forced into exile by Pinochet’s military dictatorship.

Blending the intimate and the historical, the film is anchored by the voice of his mother, Cristina Godoy-Navarrete, whose testimony of survival under torture becomes a living document of resistance. As they confront the very places where the regime sought to silence her -including a suburban house that once operated as the notorious "Venda Sexy" torture centre-, the family’s journey becomes a searing confrontation with Chile’s unresolved trauma and ongoing political amnesia.

Filmed over three years, MOTHER, COUNTRY unfolds during the social uprising of 2019, when a new generation took to the streets of Santiago demanding justice and equality. Navarrete, witnessing this awakening, finds his own: a reconnection with a homeland long held at arm’s length, and with a legacy of struggle that refuses to fade.

Far more than a memoir, this documentary is part of a larger act of remembrance for the 100,000s who were exiled, and for the transnational voices that have kept Chile’s memory alive abroad. Through family archives, street protests, and raw, unflinching testimonies, the film speaks to the ghosts of a nation still reckoning with its past, and to the resilience of those who never stopped resisting.

The premiere is part of BERLATIN, a year-round showcase of Latin American cinema bringing the best of the region’s stories to Berlin audiences. BERLATIN Screenings are organized by LATIN QUARTER Film Distribution in partnership with Kino Babylon.

Trailer: