Fiesta Patria

A metaphor for the social and moral state of Chile, Fiesta Patria tells the tale of two families who meet at a country house to celebrate the national holidays and the engagement of their children, Macarena and Alvaro. But shortly before the expected happy conclusion to the event, young Macarena discovers the family’s best-kept secret… The secret is the equivalent of an atom bomb – or it should be. But as recent events such as Pinochet’s death have shown, coming to terms with post-1973 history in Chile is not simple. Director Luis R. Vera himself was born in Chile, but went into exile after the coup as over a million other Chileans did. He lived briefly in Peru, Romania and then Sweden, where he became friendly with members of the Dogma film movement, the spirit of which is evident in his films. Using a gallery of characters representative of Chilean society, Vera uses Fiesta Patria to lunge with great ferocity at the lies, hypocrisy and trauma of a generation still mired in the post-1973 era. The film creates a provocative testimony to the period that began with the Pinochet dictatorship and still echoes loudly today. —Denis DeLaRoca