01
The Official Story
Why this pick
Like Machuca, it filters national trauma through a comfortable family’s awakening, turning political violence into an intimate moral reckoning rather than a history lesson.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE2004 2h 1m CHL
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
Machuca
Drama
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved Machuca, try these.
01
02
A Fantastic Woman
Why this pick
Another piercing Chilean character study: social prejudice and institutional cruelty steadily close in, while its humane viewpoint remains emotionally direct and unsensational.
03
The Year My Parents Went on Vacation
Why this pick
Its child’s-eye view of Brazil’s dictatorship echoes Machuca’s blend of youthful innocence, everyday friendships, and an ominous political world breaking into private life.
04
No
Why this pick
A Chilean companion with the same lived-in historical texture and sharp sense of class politics, following civic resistance through an intentionally rough, period-authentic visual style.
05
The Milk of Sorrow
Why this pick
It shares Machuca’s attention to the long afterlife of political violence in ordinary homes, told with empathy, quiet observation, and a deeply personal point of view.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
The film is shown from the perspective of Gonzalo Infante, an 11 year upper middle-class Chilean boy, during a time period in which the lower classes demand more rights and fundamental change and have won the recent democratic election. Many from the middle and upper class, including members of Gonzalo's own family, grow fearful of the Socialist Party of Chile and plot against the country's elected president, Salvador Allende. Gonzalo's father, while sympathetic to the poor and not part of the right-wing movement, wants to leave the country to Italy, where he frequently travels for work at the Food and Agriculture Organization. Gonzalo's mother, Maria Luisa Infante, is having an affair with a wealthy older Argentines, Roberto Ochagavia, who gives Gonzalo gifts to keep him quiet. Gonzalo is sometimes bullied by his sister's boyfriend, who is a violent anti-Allende right-winger who uses nunchakus to intimidate people. The family often buys products off of the black market, due to rationing and shortages.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Ariel Mateluna
Machuca
Tamara Acosta
Juana
Alejandro Trejo
Willy
Luis Dubó
Ismael Machuca
Tiago Correa
Pablo
Francisca Imboden
Amiga 2 Maria Luisa
Jorge Zepeda
Chofer de Ochagavía
Federico Luppi
Roberto