Sanfic 2025 Unveils Chilean Competition, Including Late Caro's 'Monguen'

The 22nd Santiago International Film Festival will screen nine Chilean features in its Chile Film Competition between November 2 and 6, including "Monguen," the final documentary by filmmaker Antonio Caro, who died unexpectedly in recent weeks.

What is 'Monguen'?

The posthumous feature follows Fresia, a young Mapuche woman from Alto Biobío who leaves her community to give birth in the city, then returns, navigating motherhood between two worlds. Producer Michel Toledo developed the film through Conecta CCDoc, Residencia Arca, Nuevas Miradas EICTV, Hot Docs Forum, Cannes Docs at Marché du Film, and Encuentros Australes at FIC Valdivia.

Sanfic artistic director Carlos Núñez told the festival: "We present his film with special affection, as a way of honoring his work and keeping his perspective present within this selection."

What else is competing?

Four of the nine titles are debut features. The lineup:

• "Animals" (Andrés Waissbluth Weinstein) — a Chilean-Argentine sci-fi satire about animals with civil rights, including a sheep running for office, a lie-sniffing dog, and a jealous cat. World premiere.
• "Beat" ("Latir") (Patricio Loutit Azócar, debut) — a retired university professor joins a body-percussion workshop during Chile's 2022 constitutional plebiscite; he confronts his wife's terminal illness along the way. World premiere.
• "Black Corp" ("Cuadro Negro") (Carolina Adriazola and José Luis Sepúlveda) — a young journalist documenting the Chilean army returns to live with her grandmother and meets a figure with opposing views on the military legacy. Latin American premiere after winning Punto de Vista's Grand Prize.
• "Death Brought You Back" (Sebastián Cuevas Barria, debut) — Silvia returns to Chiloé after 30 years to claim her dying mother's inheritance. Selected at Sanfic's 2024 Ibero-American WIP.
• "Erratics" ("Bloques Erráticos") (Thomas Woodroffe, debut) — Denis Lavant stars as a ghost released from a Patagonian glacier into a futuristic setting. A Rotterdam CineMart winner that screened at San Sebastián's New Directors.
• "Floating Population" ("Población Flotante") (Carlos Araya Díaz) — a docu-fiction hybrid that world-premiered at Ji.hlava and won Best Chilean Film of the Future at FIC Valdivia in 2023.
• "Inner Rebellion" ("Rebelión Interior") (Sofía Paloma Gómez Vergara) — a documentary revisiting Chile's social uprising through a health brigade treating injured protesters, drawing a line to dictatorship-era wounds. World premiere.
• "The Tiger of the East" ("El Tigre del Este") (Jorge Acevedo, debut) — a Chilean muleteer leaves home for Mexico with a dream of gifting an original song to Los Tigres del Norte. Premiered at Shanghai.

Prizes go to best film, best director, and best actor.

How tight is the funding picture?

Chilean cinema has rarely looked busier. The 2026-2027 industry catalog reports a 20.5% surge in titles over the previous season. Producers unveiled it at San Sebastián, where eight Chilean titles screened across seven sections.

The state is pulling back. President José Antonio Kast, in office since March, has announced reductions to the Ministry of Culture and multiple arts funds. The ministry describes next year's overall cut as 9%. The Audiovisual Investment Support Fund tells a sharper story: it falls from roughly $586,000 (540 million pesos) in 2026 to $208,000 (192 million pesos) in 2027 — a 64% reduction.

Alejandra García of Ronda Cine, producer of Chile's Oscar submission "The Meltdown," told Variety: "The recent budget cuts to culture in Chile are deeply frustrating. It's difficult to understand why a country's support for culture is still seen as an expense to be reduced, rather than an investment that should be strengthened."

What's next?

Programmers expect cross-border co-productions to absorb some of the 2027 shortfall. Sanfic will announce its remaining nine sections on October 20. Whether the festival's expanded slate can hold against a contracting fund will be the season's defining question.