Barbara Wurm: I’d like to welcome directors Tamara Uribe and Felipe Morgado, producer Alba Gaviraghi and Luciano wears multiple hats: a consultant for the Forum, interpreter and critic. Luciano, I believe you’ve prepared a kind of introduction.
Luciano Monteagudo: Following PROPAGANDA (2014) and DIOS (2019), OASIS is the third feature documentary made by Chilean collective MAFI (Mapa fílmico de un país / Film map of a country). With the sixties and their collectives now long gone, such as Grupo Cine Liberación in Argentina and the Dziga Vertov group in France, it is unusual these days to hear about a film collective which doesn’t credit its work to a single author and has a clear editorial line. We have the pleasure of talking with three of the current group members about their history and working methods as well as about the making of OASIS: a large-scale canvas showing the 2019 popular revolts in Chile and the constitutional convention that followed it.
BW: When and how was MAFI born?
Alba Gaviraghi: Around 12 years ago, its co-founders were Christopher Murray, Antonio Luco, Ignacio Rojas and Pablo Núñez, who were young university graduates at the time. Their concern was the disconnection between politics and citizenship and their initial idea was: “How can we interrogate the national territory audio-visually?” The answer was to create MAFI (Film Map of a Country), a collective aimed at capturing fragments of reality, contributing to the audio-visual memory of the country and promoting social reflection through images. We are in Chile. We are a very long, very small and very narrow country. And they wanted to map out the territory, to build an archive of images about our country which has such diversity, not only in terms of its landscapes, but also politically and culturally. At the very same time, the idea was to try to generate a dynamic approach that is more flexible than what traditional film projects have accustomed us to. The first stage was to create a website to connect different one-minute shots from different corners of our country to create an archive, a set of memories and activities from the present. That was the first wave of MAFI. After that, the group realised that one shot combined with another and another and another and so on could, all together, make a film. That’s how PROPAGANDA was born. It was very a special political moment, with elections round the corner and social uprisings. The country was divided on these political issues, and it was very interesting to have the opportunity to explore that reality with the MAFI rules: one-minute shots, a fixed camera on a tripod and direct sound. And the idea was always to work collaboratively and collectively, to create a very diverse archive of different points of view on simple, everyday reality.
Tamara Uribe: PROPAGANDA started our collaborative way of working in that we had this format of one minute of recording on a tripod that was a style could then be easily produced by different documentary filmmakers across the country. A collaborative work methodology was thus established that we later all replicated. And then we continued to develop our second feature film DIOS, which was also made with a similar methodology. But we also developed other lines of work in parallel. We did a lot of work with art residencies in communities in far-flung territories. In Chile, we created a training programme with a project called MAFI Schools, which is also based around developing this point of view.
Somehow what we wanted was to recover the ideas of the origins of cinema, of the Lumière brothers’ camerapeople, who sent their documentary images from many different parts of the world
LM: As you explained, your MAFI rules are very rigorous and at the very same time very simple to replicate. And, of course, these rules create an aesthetic. Can you talk a bit more about that?
TU: During its very first stage, MAFI was born as a way to insert ourselves into what was happening in the world, on the Internet and on social networks. That was ten years ago. But somehow what we wanted was to recover the ideas of the origins of cinema, of the Lumière brothers’ camerapeople, who sent their documentary images from many different parts of the world. The difference is that in MAFI we want to stop and look for the tensions of reality in one single documentary image. For us, as documentary filmmakers, it means getting used to working in this way, to develop our gaze in this sense. It’s a way of exploring our reality. In the particular case of OASIS, a film which was born out of a moment of crisis, it meant going out into the street with a tripod: it was extraordinary and even dangerous because everything was in motion. This process also unfolded naturally for us and for other documentary filmmakers in the country, who we didn’t know and who began to send us their materials because they already knew what we were doing. Placing the camera in those situations was a way to be able to stop and think about what was happening. It was like going out exploring. There’s also a sense of adventure in that way of registering things, daring to hold your gaze when everything around you is in chaos. Unlike the previous films, which involved development and research, OASIS is more a product of contingency. It was spontaneous.
LM: I want to ask about the importance of the editing in your films, and OASIS in particular, because the duration of each shot is a way to give it a value. Is that right?
Felipe Morgado: In the editing process, the idea is to choose the most significant moment we have from a single take, which can be very long, sometimes up to 15 minutes, or more. The editing is an exercise in searching for unrepeatable moments that come from the great, very patient and sometimes tedious observation of what we record on the spot. And when we find such moments in a specific context, a narrative is then constructed that plays around with contrasts and a dialogue between the images is born. In this particular film, the narrative in question implied making the reality before our eyes more complex and asking ourselves both what was going on and what that question meant for the future We were filming a historic milestone that we were part of and very important decisions were being made for the future of the country. At the same time, it was also important for us to be able to distance ourselves from that immediate setting. Although we were in the presence of a moment that we knew was historic and that we needed to tell that story of, we preferred to make the film into more of a question, capable of reflecting on the situation we were experiencing, which we felt was unique.
If you open the camera lens a little wider, you realise that other things are going on outside of that image
BW: But from which point of view?
TU: In this sense, it is interesting to mention that OASIS, the title of the film, comes from a textual quote: A statement made in an interview by recently deceased former President Sebastián Piñera, who, shortly before the start of the social uprisings of October 2019, said that Chile was an oasis, a calm, stable country in the middle of a Latin America in crisis. That metaphor became very ironic. And for us, it resonated a lot with all the work we had been doing until then as documentary filmmakers, as a network of filmmakers. We wanted to narrate the internal tension contained that ironic metaphor, which was more of a mirage than a metaphor. What interests us is to be able to look at these images to find the tensions that at some point coexist in a certain balance but are also latent and have to do with the traces left behind by a political and economic model, with the image that is constructed of a country. And if you open the camera lens a little wider, you realise that other things are going on outside of that image. From an observational point of view, we want to disarm and dismantle this mirage but also understand its contradictions.
BW: The question about the perspective seems fundamental in order to develop an understanding of how much abstraction was already taking place while shooting and editing. During the selection process, we discussed your method a lot. By focusing on one specific example, you are able to represent something big – in terms of political significance, I mean. What comes across is that we are in fact dealing with something historically unique, a very important moment; the sheer scale of the question at stake comes across. But for us as (more or less) ignorant observers of Chilean contemporary politics, it is sometimes difficult to follow, because you decided not to add any kind of explanation and also refrain from taking sides. You create a large-scale, epic historical painting. What were your thoughts about the international reception of the film, given the rigour of your documentary approach?
TU: First of all, our working approach has to do with images. In the case of OASIS, it is the first time that we got inside an organ of the State (which was, on the other hand, creating a new body in the form of the constitutional convention) that has an eminently discursive form. Through the observation of that space and its characters, we wanted to move beyond the discourse to account for the internal tensions of the debate. That was our first idea. Secondly, I think OASIS also has to do with the nature of the process that we were recording: the social uprising or popular revolt that started all this. The protests that occurred did not have specific or clear demands but were instead an expression of widespread discontent with many different demands. And then, during the process of the constitutional convention, we began to realise that perhaps the people working on it were not the same ones that had started the uprising. At the same time, the results of this process have been so absurd, even for ourselves, that I think that now, after a second constitutional convention has taken place that also failed (and which is not in the film, because it was very recent), we do not fully understand what is happening. Chileans have spent years trying to understand what is happening in our society and why it is happening. So OASIS was a way of providing extra material to be able to think about this whole process, but without ever providing answers, because I think that we as a country still don’t have them. And finally, we liked the idea of keeping the film open. We also had our interests as a collective to connect this process with other realities, with other concerns, which have to do, for example, with the whole observation of environmental conflicts in Chile. They are also connected to global problems and to questioning the possibility of institutions being able to deliver solutions. In this sense, we believe that OASIS contains a critique of a process which begins in the streets and carries the imprint of the people, but when it enters into an institutional framework, it falls into the traps that all institutions have. It seems to us that this rather open and abstract way that Barbara mentions is a way to connect OASIS to a lot of themes that are in the film, which we think are global challenges, such as the crisis of the system in terms of offering answers to the challenges of climate change, for example.
FM: The distance we assume when filming ends when the gaze of the collective appears. At that point, the film also becomes a kind of assembly where we have to make collective decisions about what we shoot and how all those materials we shoot will form part of the final edit. There are discussions about the structure, but also about the content and information provided by the film. And at that stage, the distance of our initial gaze begins to shrink. The editing process, which is the moment when the film is written, is open to the group. We invite the collective to participate in the viewings of different cuts to find the points of view that will inhabit the film in that conversation.
We trusted what those images said. We trusted that they stood on their own to deliver information, even if their context was not explained
BW: When I had to describe the film recently in one sentence, I narrowed it down to the question of how much protest democracy needs and how much democracy is contained in protest. The nature of protest strongly resembles what is also going on also on Germany’s streets. What I found interesting were the many levels of building political consent you address and the different perspectives you capture, such as rural, educational, generational or gender perspectives. It is a very multi-layered and polygonal approach, also thematically speaking, with the protest focusing also on pollution and ecological questions besides economical ones. The film starts by indexically referring to the beginning of the protest in reaction to the rise of metro tickets – you show a short scene in the metro. There are many delicate hints.
FM: The discussion continued until the final cut of the film. But the exercise of combining our poetics with the epic nature of the moment was fundamental. We wanted the analysis of the information to happen in the viewer’s head. We made this film thinking about a viewer who knows and maybe was at the protests. But we also did it not only thinking of Chilean viewers but also of those people from other parts of the world who share the same concept of democracy and know how it works. Because we know that what happens outside Chile is also part of our process.
TU: I wanted to add something to what Felipe was saying. We used different strategies to get to this point in the film. But we’re very sure of what we want to say and the images we want to share. Because to decide what was left in or out of the film, we first had to be very sure of what our findings were in terms of images. We trusted what those images said. We trusted that they stood on their own to deliver information, even if their context was not explained. And secondly, but no less importantly, we had to make a very large synthesis, a temporal reduction because there were six elections during the filming of OASIS, and we left only two in the film. As Barbara mentions, I think that this idea of hints makes a lot of sense to us. It is a way to provide context without necessarily adding more information. For example, the idea of the metro that she mentions is something like a piece of background information in OASIS, a hint that does not try to explain that everything that happened later was only due to the increase in the price of the metro ticket. It is just a clue.
LM: When I was in contact with one of the producers of OASIS, Diego Pino Anguita, I mentioned to him that for me the film very strongly expresses what political scientists now call “democratic dissatisfaction”. This is happening not only in Chile, of course, but also in Argentina and other parts of the world. The people are not happy with their institutions because those institutions can’t find solutions to their daily problems, and what happens with the popular vote is that it swings back and forth a lot, like a pendulum.
TU: Within this idea that Luciano mentions of how democracy can or cannot offer solutions to certain types of conflicts, it seemed to us that registering the first constitutional convention in Chile was very important and particular. Because somehow all those tensions and conflicts in society were concentrated in this official palace, with the most diverse set characters who had to sit down and talk together. It was not just a political process with professional politicians. The floor was given to these angry and dissatisfied masses who entered the constitutional convention with a representative responsibility to discuss the entire process with their ideological adversaries. Observing what was happening there was a unique and unprecedented opportunity.
FM: This film is not intended to be the official voice of the constitutional convention, nor to tell the official story of a historical moment. It rather invites the viewer to choose a role and think to the future. There are big questions we still have to ask to make decisions. What will be our place in the future revolutions that we are sure will happen? What problems do we have to solve to face political solutions and give prominence to social movements? Those are some of the questions we want to ask with OASIS.
