Films x PL

Ho Ho Ho    [1996 / 24 minutes / fiction / 16mm]

December, 1981, Viña del Mar, Chile. The adventures of a Chilean Santa Claus, a young man working as a supermarket ‘Viejo Pascuero’ who runs into a horrifying case of domestic violence. It is a classic children’s tale: the uniformed hero, the ugly villainous, the incredulous friend, the lonely mother, and the heroine in danger. It is also a portrait of Chile right in the middle of a sinister period, seen through the eyes of a little girl, struggling to keep the rituals of the Chilean summer Christmas and her fantasy world safe.

Directed and produced by Pablo Leighton and Sebastián Sepúlveda. Written by Pablo Leighton. Cast: Alfredo Becerra, Manuela González, César San Martín, César Robinson.

In Spanish with English subtitles. For mature audiences only.



FASCIST PROPAGANDA [1999 / 5 min. / experimental / video]

Formally, this is a music video that follows the song Adolfo, Benito, Augusto y Toribio by the avant-garde Chilean band Fulano. At the same time, this is a comparative analysis of the use of fascist propaganda in Chile and Europe, with the same effect of covering up genocide against an uninformed population.

Directed and edited by Pablo Leighton. Music performed by Fulano and composed by Jaime Vivanco.

In Spanish with English and German subtitles.





THE PEOPLE SHOP     [1999 / 5 min. / experimental / 16mm]

“History will absolve me”, Fidel Castro said once. In a historical trial, a found footage character impersonates both Fidel and Che Guevara, and defends the Cuban process after more than five decades, overcoming all the possible obstacles. Together with the Cuban revolutionaries, many of the American presidents since the 1959 Revolution join the trial and display the historical evidence. They all leave to the viewer to judge Fidel or not.

Directed and edited by Pablo Leighton.

In Spanish and English with simultaneous intertitles.




JAIME     [1999 / 17 min. / fiction / 16mm]

Jim is a matured, aged man about to retire who for the second time in his life runs into the only woman that has ever rejected him. Jim is celebrating his retirement party when a young Caucasian woman reappears, decades later and still young. It is Jim who got old. What else to say about Jim? That he is a man obsessed with blonde women, loves to be surrounded by his young admirers, and once wanted to be an artist. Jim is also an actor in pornographic movies, presumably reinforcing the stereotype of the Latino male and his conception of the white Caucasian female.

Directed, written and edited by Pablo Leighton. Cast: Jaime Hagel, Alfredo Becerra, Ricardo Orozco, Rodrigo Orozco, Toni McDonald, Ileana Hagel, Claudia & Leo.

In Spanish and English with simultaneous subtitles. For mature audiences only.




FARAMAK     [2001 / 35 min. / documentary / video]

The portrait of an aspiring film director on his search for the ever-elusive dream of making movies. It is a quest that starts in the midst of the Iranian Revolution and ends in the doomed landscape of Hollywood, California. While telling Faramak’s particular story, a larger history is shown, one of confrontation between the United States and Iran. More than two decades of confrontation between these two nations are seen through one of the millions of individual stories that make history occur.

Directed, shot and edited by Pablo Leighton.

In English with Spanish subtitles and Farsi intertitles. For mature audiences only.



SHUT UP     [2004 / 10 min. / documentary / video]

The portrait of a father by his son made months before the death of the former, and during the discovery of how a customary family argument was linked to the CIA, the Cold War and Vietnam.

Directed and shot by Diego Kusak and Pablo Leighton. Edited by Pablo Leighton.

In English with Spanish subtitles.



MEDIABANDA – The long way to overcome stupidity  [2004 / 6 min. / music video]

The rehearsal of the song El largo camino hacia la superación de la estupidez during summertime in Santiago de Chile, played by eight musicians.

Directed, shot and edited by Pablo Leighton. Music performed by Mediabanda and composed by Cristián Crisosto.





MICRO   [2005 / 22 min. / documentary excerpt / video]

The largest transformation in the history of the privatised transport system of Santiago de Chile is told through a “mobile narrator”. Like many of the under-employed people that have worked for decades all day long over Santiago’s buses, the narrator sells the virtues and potentials problems of an uncertain plan. Later, the new system called Transantiago would provoke mass protests and become the biggest setback of Michelle Bachelet’s government.

Directed and written by Pablo Leighton and Francisco Hervé. Edited by Pablo Leighton. Cast: Alfredo Becerra, Hardy Vallejos, Waldo Ortiz.

In Spanish.