(1967) · Dirección: Raúl Ruiz (2019) · Co Dirección: Valeria Sarmiento (2020) · Estreno Mundial "The story revolves around a man whose wife has committed suicide and appears to him as a ghost. The ghost follows him everywhere, under the bed, under tables… After seeing the ghost so frequently, the man begins to resemble her, in a spiral in which we discover that he was never really married and that what is really going on is his personality doubling and a schizophrenic game". Raúl Ruiz. Luis Alarcón, Actor

During 2016 and 2017, while researching and to the editing room; which today boasts the post-producing The Wandering Soap Opera, a artistic direction of Valeria Sarmiento, lm directed by Raúl Ruiz in 1990 and lmmaker, lm editor, and widow of Ruiz; and completed under the direction of lmmaker whose development has surpassed several stages. Valeria Sarmiento, we learned about the existence of footage from other un nished In 2018, a group of people born with profound projects by Ruiz. Among them was a set of deafness, who are also experts in reading facial, 35mm rolls of The Tango of the Widower (El lip, and body language, deciphered the dialogues Tango Del Viudo), his rst feature lm, lmed in of the actors on screen. With a certain degree of 1967, held in storage at an old cinema in success in this complex work, the literary script Santiago de Chile. was rewritten with playwright and Omar Saavedra Santis, which allowed us to In a news article from that era, Ruiz had distance ourselves from the lm in order to nd commented on the obstacles that made it the right tone. Ruiz referred to The Tango of the impossible for him to nance the lm’s audio Widower as an experimental lm that showed post-production: "The future will be responsible dierent humorous situations of Chilean reality, for giving this movie sound, which today is immersed in a horror-fantasy lm, where a being stored silent." widowed teacher is haunted by the "collective"

THE TANGO OF THE WIDOWER AND ITS DISTORTING MIRROR THE TANGO ghost of his wife. In plain sight, what could de ne the lm is the rescue of Raúl Ruiz's rst feature, lmed at the Once in the editing room, Valeria and her team young age of 27. However, if our observation gave de nitive form to the dialogues, and digs a little deeper, we realize that there are realized that the characters inhabit their city in instances that transcend this basic analysis, in an era that seems more like a timeless village, order to understand its essential foundation as a expressed in the dead times of work whose creative process was frozen for underdevelopment. This generates a narrative more than fty years (1967-2019), quite a long atmosphere in which certain time for the original footage to go from the set ever-presentelements in Ruiz’s lms appear by surprise, and which in this lm (his rst feature) Musician , an eternal are already being incubated, such as: the collaborator of Valeria and Raúl, upon seeing permeability between the life of the living and one of the rst cuts of The Tango of the that of the dead, where ghosts are presented in Widower, was so enchanted that he delivered esh and bone, inhabiting reality in a trivial and mock-ups of dierent musical sonorities, from everyday way. There are also characters that are symphonic to minimalist, ultimately nding the one and many at the same time, in a game of element that would de ne the sound identity of constant personality splitting. There are also the image: a sonata composed for a chamber some codes born from the magical thinking of orchestra of handsaws played with a metal bow the Mapuche people and of the Island of Chiloé and theremin. in the south of Chile, a usual source of inspiration in Ruiz’s cinematic universe. Finally, we would like to point out the enormous national and international interest that has arisen The found footage is completely chaotic in from the completion and premiere of The composition, full of short repeated fragments Wandering Soap Opera, a lm that was shot by from previous scenes, like sharp pieces that have Ruiz in 1990, but like The Tango of the no connection to one another, an inaccessible Widower, was not nished. Only twenty-seven and evanescent nightmare, populated with years later, in 2017, it was released worldwide at inverted images, both in terms of frames and the the 70th Locarno International Festival in reversion of cadences. In addition to this, there the International Competition, continuing its are other fragments of scenes, with new shots journey through the most important lm that show a dierent point of view of the same festivals in Europe, Asia, the United States, and scenes repeated previously. Latin America, always accompanied by Valeria Sarmiento and the production company Valeria Sarmiento wanted to connect the POETASTROS. concept of this lmic enigma with the distorting mirrors that her husband liked so much. She lucidly remembers a handwritten text in one of Ruiz's notebooks, where he generically describes his intention to give a lm a spiral structure but intervened by a "narrative mirror", so that the lm somehow makes the viewer revisit previously watched scenes, but in a dierent sensory experience, delivering new symbols which are redundant in form but not in content.This text has been key to deciphering this mysterious footage, and has articulated the structure of The Tango of the Widower in two parts: the rst is the original, and the second is its double, seeking to produce a new narrative territory that provides ideas for a new language and new interpretations. Filmmaker Valeria Sarmiento

When I met Raúl, he had just nished "Three Sad Tigers", his rst feature lm. He told me about an earlier lm that he had not been able to nish due to lack of means. Indeed, I never saw his "The Tango of the Widower" until after his death, once the lost copies were found in the attic of Cine Normandie, a movie theater in Santiago. Only seven rolls were found, the rst of the set was missing, and they had only the image, not the sound.

What to do? How to rescue that material?

My rst impression of those images was one of seeing only ghosts; a large part of those actors had died. I told myself: we had to prioritize that very feeling from then on. The irremediable lack of sound suggested to me that it would not be a matter of making all of this material a realistic lm. The music should be contemporary and thus make evident, by contrast, the mismatch with the era of its lming.

We immediately started trying to discover what the actors said in their dialogues, a labor that we were able to carry out with the collaboration of lip-reading specialists, deaf women. A draft was immediately put together, followed by a story and a rst cut.

The issue for me was to nd out, what would Raul have done? I remembered then that he always wanted to make a lm that, on the one hand, would present the images in the normal direction, and on the other, they could be seen in the opposite. He never got around to it while he was alive, except for a small exercise done at National Film Institute for an experimental program.

It is time, I told myself, to undertake the distorting mirror that Raul wanted to realize, through a story told chronologically, with the outline of a second story that would leave the impression of being the rst one, but now seen through a distorting mirror. Such is the adventure of this lm.

I ultimately feel I have respected Raúl's assignment and hope that by rescuing other lms that he left un nished around the world, we can present a week of lms: "Raúl Ruiz post mortem".

I must thank the POETASTROS production team, all of the technicians, and many other collaborators who accompanied me on this adventure. (1967) (2019)

DIRECTION CO-DIRECTION Raúl Ruiz Valeria Sarmiento

SCREENPLAY CO-WRITERS Raúl Ruiz Valeria Sarmiento, Omar Saavedra Santis

DIRECTION OF PHOTOGRAPHY PRODUCTION DIRECTION Diego Bonacina Chamila Rodríguez

EDITING AND SOUND DESIGN Galut Alarcón

LOCATIONS ORIGINAL MUSIC Santiago de Chile Jorge Arriagada Santa Lucía Hill EXECUTIVE PRODUCTION National Library Chamila Rodríguez General Cementery Galut Alarcón Galleries and Streets of Santiago Downtown Huelén street Apartment LIP, SIGN LANGUAGE AND BODY LANGUAGE READING Carolina Mujica, Carmen Gloria Uribe and Carmen Figueroa Elgueta

ORIGINAL CAST CHARACTERS VOICE ACTORS

Rubén Sotoconil Widower Sergio Hernández Claudia Paz Ghost Chamila Rodríguez Luis Alarcón Silva Néstor Cantillana Shenda Román Lola Gabriela Arancibia Luis Vilches Nephew Gabriel Urzúa Del na Guzmán Ana Marcela Golzio Alonso Venegas Devil Arturo Rosell Claudia Paz, Actress

Del na Guzmán, Actress Fotografía: Álvaro de la Fuente

Luis Vilchez, Actor

Shenda Román, Actress raúl ruiz Filmmaker the Mardel Plata FilmFestival in Argentina. for Best Director.Prize It was also awarded at where itwas awarded theIndependentCritics' FilmFestival, International of the70thLocarno world premiere Competition intheInternational En 2017, The Wandering SoapOperahadits retrospective inSantiago. Nacional deChilemounteda20- lm Ruiz’s work. Laterthatsameyear, theCineteca presented atwo-month, 80- lmretrospective of In 2016, theCinémathèque FrançaiseinParis Chile. doctorate by the University of Valparaiso in 2011, Ruizwas presented withanhonorary France, for Best Film. the Luis Delluc Prize In FilmFestivalSebastian International and, in Silver ShellforBestDirector attheSan In 2010, ofLisbonwon himboththe Mysteries Crime. FilmFestivalInternational ofa forGenealogies he was awarded the Golden Bear at the Berlin FilmFestival. International at theParis In1997, In 1986, hereceived theaward forBestDirector FilmFestival,International for Three Sad Tigers. awards, the Golden Leopard at Locarno In 1969, hewon the rstofmany international on Paris August 19th, 2011. Montt, in1941Puerto born Chile, anddiedin made mostofhismore than120 lms. Hewas From 1973on, helived inFrance, where he ofalltime. theorists directors and lm experimental the greatest recognized lmmaker, andisconsidered oneof Raúl RuizisChile’s mostinternationally valeria sarmiento Filmmaker at the San Sebastián International FilmFestival.at theSanSebastián International by CarlosSaboga, whichhaditsworld premiere In 2018, shedirected The BlackBook, written Director. awarded forBest Prize theIndependentCritics' FilmFestival, International Locarno where itwas Competitionofthe70th in theInternational Santiago in1990. The lmhaditsworld premiere Opera, whichhadbeen lmedby RaúlRuizin In 2017, shecompleted The Wandering Soap events. revindicating theirpointofview ofhistorical situation ofwomen ina misogynistic culture, lms. A frequent themeinherwork isthe travels toChileoften, where shehasshotseveral Although shehaslived since1973, inParis she Academy Awards). (chosen torepresent Portugal atthe 2013 San Sebastián, 1984)andLinhasde Wellington (Best First Film,among them Nôtre Mariage have received accolades, international important andfeatures.including documentaries Many As adirector, shehasmademore than20 lms, editing many ofhis lms. untilhisdeathin2011,collaborated artistically RaúlRuizin1969,married with him she the FilmSchoolofUniversity ofChile, and Valeria (Valparaíso, Sarmiento 1948)studiedat POETASTROS is born from the fusion of the work experience of Galut Alarcón, lmmaker, screenwriter and lm editor, and Chamila Rodríguez, actress, director and executive producer. stros poeta

In 2018 and 2019, they constructed, for the rst time, the the lm has raised this issue nationally and internationally, edit and the sound of THE TANGO OF THE resulting in articles and other coverage in a wide variety of WIDOWER, rst ction feature lm by Raúl Ruiz, news and audiovisual platforms. under the direction of Valeria Sarmiento. During 2015, POETASTROS performed the artistic In 2017, POETASTROS recovered, edited and direction and executive production of Making Of: post-produced The Wandering Soap Opera, co-directed by Working with Raúl Ruiz, a successful cycle of lms about Raúl Ruiz and Valeria Sarmiento. The lm had its world Ruiz held in Valparaíso and Santiago with the support of premiere in the International Competition of the 70th the Catholic University of Valparaíso. Locarno International Film Festival, where it won the Independent Critics award. It was also awarded at the Mar In 2014, POETASTROS produced, distributed and del Plata International Film Festival. It has been considered a marketed at the national level Galut Alarcón’s rst lm, unique phenomenon by critics around the world, and has The Invention of the Fatherland, co-directed by Chamila been included in some of the most important festivals on Rodríguez. After successful exhibition and specialized every inhabited continent. reviews, the lm entered distribution in international markets. In 2016, POETASTROS developed the SECOS project, together with the Heinrich Böll Southern Cone POETASTROS’ rst venture, in 2013, was the artistic Foundation and Modatima. This short lm intends to direction and executive production of “Itinerant Cinema increase awareness of the precarious state of water Patagonia”, which connected three distant cities at the resources available to Chile’s most isolated territories and ends of the earth in a single cinematic event, bringing communities. Fourteen of the country’s best-known TV together works of cinema and its people from Chile and and theatre actors present rst-hand testimony by local Argentina. people about the conicts they face due to the privatization of water. Recently released on social media,

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