El deshielo

Set in 1992, EL DESHIELO is an atmospheric mystery-thriller located in a remote Andean ski resort. Filmmaker Manuela Martelli evokes her own personal memories to build a portrait of an observant child struggling to get her bearings in a world where the boundaries between trust and suspicion are slippery. While spending some time at her grandparents’ hotel, nine-year-old Inés befriends Hanna, a sixteen-year-old professional skier who is training in the area. Hanna’s sudden disappearance sets an investigation in motion that threatens the apparent stability of this idyllic place. The film’s title refers to a real, historical event which is cleverly woven into the fiction: Inés’s parents belong to the committee transporting the giant iceberg that will form the centrepiece of Chile’s pavilion at the 1992 Seville Expo. This image quickly becomes a powerful metaphor for a country laboriously transitioning to a democracy after a frozen era of forced silence. Just as melting snow reveals what was hidden beneath the winter ice, Martelli’s second feature—with its striking cinematography and suggestive storytelling—unveils how political traumas and long-buried secrets were kept shrouded under the icy façade of normal life. (Cristina Álvarez López)

In the presence of Manuela Martelli.

Manuela Martelli: APNEA (2014, K), MAREA DE TIERRA (2015, K, KO-REGIE), 1976 (2022)