Cien niños esperando un tren

One hundred children waiting for train

Ignacio Agüero

Chile

1988

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Description

One hundred children in the town of Lo Hermida on the outskirts of Santiago take part in a film workshop led by Professor Alicia Vega. In the workshop's playful environment, they build some of the devices that led to the invention of cinema, like a thaumatrope and a zoetrope. They also use paper photos to make a movie showing its people in the shape of a caterpillar running through the streets. At the end, they go a cinema for the first time in the city center, which they are also seeing for the first time. An exercise in creation and joy as an escape from the oppression of the military dictatorship.

Awards and festivals

- Festival of the New Latin American Cinema - Coral Award, First Prize, Havana (1988)

Biography of the director

Ignacio Agüero
Born in Santiago de Chile in 1952. He studied architecture and film at the Catholic University of Chile. He made his first three films, 2 short films and a medium-length film, during the dictatorship. Most of his film career has been doing auteur documentary filmmaking. He has also worked as a photographer, camera operator, screenwriter, sound engineer and producer on many of his own films and has also produced numerous films for Chilean television.

He was co-director on the television program la Franja del NO about the plebiscite that defeated Pinochet. He has also been an actor in numerous films, such as those by José Luis Torres Leiva and Raúl Ruiz, among others. Retrospectives of his film work have been held in Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Spain and Mexico. He has received numerous international awards, led workshops in various different countries and been on the jury at many festivals.

He has made the documentary films No Olvidar (1982), Como me da la gana (1985), Cien niños esperando un tren (1988), Sueños de hielo (1993), Aquí se construye (2000), La mamá de mi abuela le contó a mi abuela (2004), El diario de Agustín (2008), El otro día (2012), Como me da la gana II (2016) which received the Grand Prize at FID Marseille. He is currently filming his documentary Nunca subí el Provincia.

He is currently a film professor at the University of Chile, where he runs the Network of Film Workshops and Research and the school Cero en Conducta.