Film “Edit” in Miradoc
Since March 23.
More information here.
“Edita” is the directorial debut of the outstanding Chilean makeup artist, Pamela Pollak, produced by Pollak Films, by the same director with Carolina Ojalvo and Cristóbal Sotomayor and can be seen from Arica to Punta Arenas. In this way, Miradoc opens this 2023 with a documentary directed by a woman with extensive experience in the audiovisual world that tells the story of a woman silenced by her family, who will surely identify those who see her.
After eleven years of research, filming and editing, “Edita” manages to reconstruct the story of Pollak’s rebellious great-aunt. One of the first women to study at the renowned Bauhaus, part of the Nazi resistance in the former Czechoslovakia and Chile, and a single mother; insurrectionary features for the time, calling Edita “crazy”, separating her from her son and being excluded from her family.
Premiered in the National Competition of the last edition of FIDOCS, exhibited at FECINA and awarded at FICIQQ, the feature film that arrives in national theaters on March 23 is the family reconstruction of the director and a woman who represented a dark and mysterious side of her clan, and that Pollak will try to unveil to understand her own present.
The beginning of the documentary is set in the late 80s with the arrival from Germany to Pucón, Chile, of Jarda, bringing the ashes of his mother Edita in order to fulfill a promise she made to her: to return to one of the places where she was happy.
Decades later, Pollak discovers in her grandparents’ house some boxes with letters from her and decides to travel to Berlin, where her uncle Jarda accompanies her in the search for the identity of this extemporaneous woman. Edita was persecuted by the Nazis for being a rebellious woman for her time, when that meant studying at the Bauhaus, being an intellectual, leftist, feminist and single mother.
Through the diverse archival material such as photographs and letters, Edita’s character and personality are glimpsed, and how difficult it was for her to demonstrate her abilities and mental health, preventing her from being able to love and fight for her convictions, ending up isolated and silenced.
On the motivations to make “Edita”, its creator Pamela Pollak says: “Since I was a child I was attracted to photography. My grandfather and my father were photographers, so the family photographic tradition always marked us. Then, over time, I began to think about what is outside the photographic frame, how is it that this or that shot was reached?, what happened outside the frame?, where is the story that is not seen in the photo?, so I started with the research, memories of conversations, visiting relatives, strange languages, accent in Spanish, endless stimuli for my curiosity.”
The original music of renowned local composer Rodrigo Cepeda — better known as Subhira (“courage” in Hindi) — plays a major role in the film, a symphonic piece performed on violin by Edita’s granddaughter, Elena Rindler, accompanied by a quartet of violin, cello, bass and piano; that accentuates several moments of the film, showing each image, the cities and spaces that can be observed in the documentary.
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