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Directed by German Berger-Hertz
Chile, Spain, Germany, 2009
102 min./Spanish with English Subtitles
Filmmaker German Berger-Hertz’s personal journey back to Chile retraces the final days of his idealistic father, Carlos, who was executed in the aftermath of the 1973 military coup. Berger-Hertz’s mother, a Jew who had escaped persecution in Eastern Europe, did not take the new order lying down. At the height of the repressive regime, she braved arrests and beatings, marching with hundreds of other women through the streets seeking justice for their missing loved ones. Eventually, Berger-Hertz and his mother were forced to flee Chile. Now, four decades after Carlos’s death, the filmmaker returns to a democratic Chile to confront the past, following the path taken by his father in the last weeks of his life. Berger-Hertz imbues My Life with Carlos with a spare, formal beauty as his camera combs the lonely roads and desert landscapes where his defiant father was "disappeared," and renders this personal portrait a son’s quest to understand not only his father, but his country. —Thomas Logoreci
Preceded by Grandmothers, 12 min.
On his 10th birthday, Leo receives socks from one grandmother and underwear from the other, but from his grandfather he gets an old Super-8 camera. With the camera, Leo finds out that Monica Lewinsky is Jewish, Bill Clinton is the president of America and the numbers tattooed on his grandparents’ arms are responsible for his chubbiness. —Joshua Moore
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