El Chacal de Nahueltoro

Miguel Littín’s legendary debut feature helped define the urgently realist and political imperative that propelled the all-too-brief ascendency of the New Chilean Cinema.
EL CHACAL DE NAHUELTORO is based on the true story of an impoverished drifter whose seemingly inexplicable cold-blooded murder of a widow and her young children shocked the nation and sparked a fierce debate about the justice system and penal reform. Littín boldly revisited the crime to ask penetrating, difcult questions about Chile’s unjust class structure and the responsibility of the state towards its citizens. Following the tragically errant path of the killer—first from his childhood as an abused orphan who never received a proper education—EL CHACAL DE NAHUELTORO insists on holding to task the sociocultural conditions that shaped a life lost to indolence, alcohol and the dark forces that can push one to commit a heinous crime. The powerfully expressive cinematography by celebrated cinematographer and occasional director Héctor Ríos embodies the film’s gripping ideas, capturing vast remote landscapes and their cold indiference to the stark human drama unfolding within them. (Haden Guest)

Miguel Littín: COMPAÑERO PRESIDENTE (1971), LA TIERRA PROMETIDA (1973), ON VOUS PARLE DU CHILI: CE QUE DISAIT ALLENDE (1973, K), ACTAS DE MARUSIA (1975), EL RECURSO DEL MÉTODO (1978), LA VIUDA DE MONTIEL (1979), ALSINO Y EL CÓNDOR (1982), ACTA GENERAL DE CHILE (1986), SANDINO (1990), LOS NÁUFRAGOS (1994), TIERRA DEL FUEGO (2000), LA ÚLTIMA LUNA (2005), DAWSON ISLA 10 (2009), ALLENDE EN SU LABERINTO (2014)