Queridos compañeros

The battles within and different strategies employed by the Chilean Left in the years before the election victory of Salvador Allende’s Unidad Popular were supposed to be at the heart of this 1973 film, before the film was overtaken by the political events of that year. The plot begins in 1967, with protagonists José and Vicente needing to flee in the aftermath of an operation carried out by their revolutionary underground organization. At that point, the narrative is interrupted. Footage of June 29th, 1973 is then inserted in its place, the date of the first failed coup d’état against Allende. The film team takes part in the demonstrations that follow before they are exiled by the putsch. The film is narrated from a perspective of distance: that of 1978 and Venezuelan exile. It is a last document of Chilean cinema under the Unidad Popular government.