Screening

In honor of the film's 20th anniversary, BFA Visual & Critical Studies and the SVA Honors Program present a screening of the internationally acclaimed fiction film Machuca (2004). The film takes place in a boarding school during the 1973 overthrow of Salvador Allende’s presidency and the rise of Pinochet's fascism in Chile, with perturbing resonances in today's global political climate. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Chilean writer and one of Machuca’s screenwriters, Roberto Brodsky.

Machuca follows the lives, over the course of a school year in 1972/73, of two young schoolboys in Santiago, Chile. One is from an upper-middle-class family; the other from a working-class family. Both attend the private boys school St. Patrick’s, whose principal seeks reduce the class segregation typical to Chile at the time and to follow the lead of Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity government. The story follows the boys’ friendship and its relationship to the politics of the time, including the growing tensions in the city around Allende’s government and the right-wing reaction that would eventually result in a coup d’etat on September 11, 1973. Based on a screenplay written by Roberto Brodsky and director Andrés Wood whose own experiences mirror those of the protagonists, Machuca was released to wide acclaim in 2004.

Roberto Brodsky Baudet (born 1957, Santiago, Chile) is a Chilean novelist and screenwriter. He has written four novels, several film and theater scripts, and over 250 articles published in national newspapers and magazines. Baudet was awarded the 2007 Jaén Prize for Best Novel and the 2009 Martin Nuez Award, both for his 2008 novel Bosque Quemado (Burnt Forest). He lives in New York City with his wife and family. He is adjunct professor at the Center for Latin American Studies in Georgetown University and at the School of Visual Arts (SVA).