Berliner Boersenzeitung - Chilean film 'Bestia' depicts torture with animation

EUR -
AED 4.100226
AFN 78.607645
ALL 98.167058
AMD 432.287047
ANG 1.997848
AOA 1023.661764
ARS 1274.49341
AUD 1.739353
AWG 2.012161
AZN 1.908186
BAM 1.955741
BBD 2.261232
BDT 136.075923
BGN 1.95883
BHD 0.422187
BIF 3332.500143
BMD 1.116317
BND 1.454256
BOB 7.738768
BRL 6.322037
BSD 1.119966
BTN 95.745131
BWP 15.144546
BYN 3.66509
BYR 21879.80438
BZD 2.249633
CAD 1.55955
CDF 3204.944523
CHF 0.9353
CLF 0.027413
CLP 1051.968478
CNY 8.048085
CNH 8.04872
COP 4704.55903
CRC 567.283002
CUC 1.116317
CUP 29.582389
CVE 110.261696
CZK 24.899774
DJF 199.434024
DKK 7.461016
DOP 65.908025
DZD 148.865539
EGP 55.928324
ERN 16.744748
ETB 151.19477
FJD 2.537726
FKP 0.84048
GBP 0.840568
GEL 3.058975
GGP 0.84048
GHS 13.887584
GIP 0.84048
GMD 80.932572
GNF 9698.709382
GTQ 8.598742
GYD 234.312979
HKD 8.722507
HNL 29.141127
HRK 7.532874
HTG 146.545609
HUF 402.867272
IDR 18412.804255
ILS 3.967523
IMP 0.84048
INR 95.543468
IQD 1467.156037
IRR 47010.898839
ISK 145.891709
JEP 0.84048
JMD 178.53465
JOD 0.791809
JPY 162.594297
KES 144.755662
KGS 97.621792
KHR 4481.865703
KMF 492.791823
KPW 1004.684945
KRW 1561.861035
KWD 0.343145
KYD 0.933372
KZT 571.02289
LAK 24221.274219
LBP 100346.793146
LKR 335.109959
LRD 223.983288
LSL 20.217294
LTL 3.296193
LVL 0.675248
LYD 6.178815
MAD 10.389889
MDL 19.509415
MGA 5019.849582
MKD 61.528156
MMK 2343.910844
MNT 3989.460179
MOP 9.01513
MRU 44.327672
MUR 51.473219
MVR 17.25843
MWK 1941.94181
MXN 21.730104
MYR 4.795722
MZN 71.346223
NAD 20.217294
NGN 1788.718987
NIO 41.208765
NOK 11.593846
NPR 153.19241
NZD 1.897965
OMR 0.429497
PAB 1.119966
PEN 4.129076
PGK 4.654861
PHP 62.294374
PKR 315.37555
PLN 4.268493
PYG 8941.732064
QAR 4.081978
RON 5.106256
RSD 117.226487
RUB 90.497288
RWF 1603.751944
SAR 4.18645
SBD 9.310558
SCR 15.922323
SDG 670.330717
SEK 10.907869
SGD 1.4521
SHP 0.87725
SLE 25.332941
SLL 23408.600134
SOS 640.08082
SRD 40.836531
STD 23105.498751
SVC 9.799706
SYP 14514.182108
SZL 20.222394
THB 37.223555
TJS 11.546554
TMT 3.91269
TND 3.376699
TOP 2.614526
TRY 43.377276
TTD 7.596772
TWD 33.732401
TZS 3021.009477
UAH 46.488807
UGX 4097.877209
USD 1.116317
UYU 46.598604
UZS 14520.564897
VES 105.163968
VND 28936.599451
VUV 135.210799
WST 3.101717
XAF 655.937345
XAG 0.034565
XAU 0.000349
XCD 3.016902
XDR 0.815776
XOF 655.937345
XPF 119.331742
YER 272.494958
ZAR 20.14343
ZMK 10048.18544
ZMW 30.104098
ZWL 359.453474
  • CMSC

    -0.0500

    22.05

    -0.23%

  • CMSD

    0.0472

    22.06

    +0.21%

  • SCS

    0.0000

    10.5

    0%

  • RELX

    0.5300

    54.57

    +0.97%

  • GSK

    0.4991

    37.64

    +1.33%

  • NGG

    1.2500

    71.28

    +1.75%

  • RBGPF

    64.5000

    64.5

    +100%

  • AZN

    0.8500

    68.81

    +1.24%

  • RYCEF

    0.0200

    10.72

    +0.19%

  • BTI

    1.2700

    42.64

    +2.98%

  • RIO

    -0.1100

    62.64

    -0.18%

  • BCC

    0.9200

    91.91

    +1%

  • JRI

    0.1600

    12.9

    +1.24%

  • BCE

    -0.0700

    21.56

    -0.32%

  • BP

    0.1300

    29.76

    +0.44%

  • VOD

    0.1800

    9.45

    +1.9%

Chilean film 'Bestia' depicts torture with animation
Chilean film 'Bestia' depicts torture with animation

Chilean film 'Bestia' depicts torture with animation

Nominated for this year's Oscars, Chilean short film "Bestia" (Beast) uses animation, an art form more often associated with children's movies, to deal with a macabre topic: the sexual torture of women.

Text size:

The 15-minute film about the life of Ingrid Olderock -- a particularly cruel agent of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet -- took 20 people three years to make.

It tells a story of the inner struggles of Olderock, the daughter of German Nazi sympathizers, who made it her life's work to psychologically break women prisoners, including using dogs to sexually assault them.

Olderock (1944-2001) worked at a detention center that specialized in the sexual torture of leftist Pinochet opponents.

"Bestia" employs the "stop motion" technique of photographing objects -- in this case dolls -- which are physically manipulated between frames. Those frames are then strung together in a series to create the impression of independent movement.

"Bestia" director Hugo Covarrubias, 44, talked to AFP about how he chose the topic -- and the medium -- to tell the story of one of the most sinister chapters of the Chilean dictatorship.

Q: Why Olderock?

A: She embodies the evil that reigned in Chile during the dictatorship... As a woman, she trained women to torture women.

A person so dedicated to breaking souls obviously has to have had her own broken at some point.

Olderock had many mental problems. She was a very paranoid woman, with a lot of trauma.

It (the film) is a psychological fiction, where we get inside her mind and try to show how all this mental trouble ends up representing an entire country. The trauma of a country (is seen) through the evil this woman represents.

Q: What is the role of her dog in the film?

A: One of the aspects we wanted to touch on was the intimate relationship with her dog.

She had three dogs, but we "fictionalized" that part and wanted to show the most important dog, which was Volodya, and little by little the film reveals what she does with the dog.

In reality, what she was doing was training dogs to commit torture, mainly to rape women.

Q: Why use stop-motion?

A: I’ve been working on this technique since 2005. It is basically what I know how to do. We like it because there is a plastic component, manual and analog, that allows us to create worlds that would be very difficult to create digitally.

We use miniature sets made of cardboard, and characters about 25 centimeters (10 inches) tall made with articulated steel, fabric and polyurethane.

Q: Why do you think the film has found acclaim abroad?

A: "Beast" stands out for the theme, the aesthetics, for the way in which this political topic is handled.

Also the genre: a psychological and political thriller that ended up being a short film that was quite different from the rest, which does not have a happy ending...

It is quite raw and powerful.

From time to time, people want this kind of power in a movie...

It causes different kinds of sensations, emotion and repulsion, it is a very strange experience. I think that the... sensations people experience with this short film -- I think it is what has made us get where we are.

Q: What does the Oscar nomination mean for you?

A: It gives more credibility to your film and obviously opens career doors for the film director and the team.

But the most important thing is the topic and the people who suffered this type of harassment.

---

Chile has three Oscars to date: Claudio Miranda won best photography for "Life of Pi" (2013), "Bear Story" (2014) won best animated short film, and "A Fantastic Woman" (2017) best foreign-language film.

"Bestia" has won prizes at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and the Guadalajara International Film Festival.

(L.Kaufmann--BBZ)