Arcana
IDFA 2019

Arcana

Arcana
Cristobal Vicente Cruz
Chile
2006
83 min
Festival history

The notorious prison in the Chilean city of Valparaiso has had its day. Now, after 150 years, it’s about to close down. Arcana resulted from a cultural project set up to pay tribute to the lives of its countless prisoners.

Filmmaker Cristobal Vicente Cruz visited the prison almost every day in the year before the prison shut its doors, in order to win the trust of its inmates. The mostly male prisoners seem to have forgotten all about the camera as they cook, watch TV, smoke and drink mate. They offer us an intimate glimpse into a hidden, secret world normally shut off from outsiders—a world with its own rhythm and rules. Mostly, the grainy black-and-white observational shots speak for themselves, but once in a while an inmate or the prison director gets to speak. The meditative mood—some scenes take place in silence, while others are accompanied by insistent, repetitive sounds—evokes a place where time seems to have stood still. The living conditions—rusty beds and overflowing squat toilets—also belong to some earlier age.

Credits
Director
    Cristobal Vicente Cruz
    Cristobal Vicente Cruz
Production
    Cristobal Vicente Cruz
    Cristobal Vicente Cruz
Cinematography
    Cristobal Vicente Cruz
    Cristobal Vicente Cruz
Editing
Sound
Music
    Luis Alvarez,
    Carlos Canales
    Luis Alvarez,
    Carlos Canales
Screening copy
    Cristobal Vicente Cruz
    Cristobal Vicente Cruz

Images

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