Assent

An expe­ri­ence dimen­sion beyond the con­fines of any cinema screen we will open up with the Oculus Rift vir­tu­al real­i­ty glass­es. In the vir­tu­al domain, we adopt the per­spec­tive of a young Chilean officer.

ASSENT is an auto­bi­o­graph­ic project, which makes excel­lent and very impres­sive use of this rev­o­lu­tion­ary technology.

When the mil­i­tary took con­trol of Chile in the coup of Sep­tem­ber 1973, it was the cul­mi­na­tion of Cold War ten­sions, inter­na­tion­al polit­i­cal influ­ence and inter­nal con­flict. For army per­son­nel, it was an event that marked their lives. In the imme­di­ate after­math of the coup, a “Car­a­van of Death” roamed the coun­try con­duct­ing exe­cu­tions of mil­i­tary detainees. This was a mech­a­nism to install terror into the com­mu­ni­ty and a way to demon­strate the force of the cen­tral author­i­ties to mil­i­tary staff out­side the cap­i­tal, and, by making them com­plic­it in the actions of the junta, to ensure their loy­al­ty. Thirty years later, the reper­cus­sions of those events still play out daily – in courts, in pol­i­tics, and in the homes of Chilean people.

This auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal immer­sive doc­u­men­tary puts the viewer in the foot­steps of my father, who in 1973 was a 22-year-old army offi­cer sta­tioned in the north of Chile, on the day when the Car­a­van of Death came to his reg­i­ment. Assent invites the user to wit­ness that day through my father’s eyes, and mine. (Oscar Raby)

The project can be expe­ri­enced in our screen­ing-gallery which is open from 12th to 17th May between 10am and 5pm.
For ASSENT please make an appoint­ment at the festival-counter.