Fandango Sales has embarked on Sergio Castro-San Martín’s “The Chilean” ahead of its world premiere in Locarno.

Set in 1976, the film follows Chilean miner Aldo Marín as he flees the Chilean regime to Turin, where he meets Luciana, a doctor who performs illegal abortions. But his attempt to rebuild his life is threatened by a talent that is also his curse: building bombs.

“The 1970s were a decisive decade for both Italy and Chile. Although the results were very different, the motivations behind the social and political movements in both countries shared important similarities,” said Sergio Castro-San Martín. Variety.

“Talking about that period means, in many ways, revisiting the beginning of the massive waves of migration in Chile and Latin America caused by forced exile. Today, that same feeling seems to be resurfacing. Not necessarily through demonstrations in the streets, but in the digital sphere.”

The biggest challenge for “El Chileno” was making a period film that felt “very rooted in the present,” he said.

“When you make films set in the past, especially in such a politically charged time, it is very easy to fall into propaganda or didactic political discourse. That is precisely what ‘El Chileno’ tries to avoid.”

Camilo Arancibia plays Aldo alongside Sara Serraiocco, Gaetano Bruno, Andrew Bargsted and Lorenzo Richelmy. “El Chileno” is a production by Dispàrte, Equeco and Cinédokké in association with Redibis Film.

Although it is inspired by Juan Cristóbal Guarello’s book “Aldo Marín, Carne de Cañon”, the film is its own beast.

“[In the book]The protagonist dreams of returning to Chile to assassinate Pinochet. In ‘El Chileno’, Aldo’s dream is much simpler and, I think, more universal: he wants to reunite with his wife and son. To do this, you have to earn enough money.”

He added: “By shifting focus in this way, the story transcends ideological boundaries and becomes deeply human. In that sense, exile naturally leads us to one of the most pressing social issues of today: immigration. This is a theme that permeates every layer of the film.”

Recreating a historical period requires an “understanding of the society that inhabited that world and the people who gave it life.”

“I wanted the language of ‘El Chileno’ to be intrinsically dual. Chileans speak Italian and Italians speak Spanish. Both police officers and militants are forced to learn each other’s languages; a fundamental principle of guerrilla warfare is to know the enemy as well as oneself.”

Aldo’s “heart remains in Chile while his body is in Italy.” But he is not the only orphan in the story, since Luciana is also marked by a painful past.

“Together, they embody a militant left, driven by revolutionary ideals, that was ultimately orphaned. Abandoned by their parties and leaders, and eventually by their own utopias. The characters wander the streets alone, like ghosts, unable to unite, defeated and forced to reinvent themselves.”

Today, many of our political concepts have been turned upside down, he said.

“The right has appropriated words that once belonged to the language of the left, and we now live in a landscape where ideological meanings have become blurred.”

However, Aldo’s fight is not just political: “It is deeply personal.”

“That is why ‘El Chileno’ returns the idea of ​​the revolutionary to the domestic sphere. ‘I don’t set the bombs. I only build them’. This line defines Aldo as someone who sees himself as an active observer of both his own life and the world around him. His burden is one of accumulation: accumulated anger, accumulated pain from exile, accumulated betrayal. It is within this shared anger – also reflected in Luciana – that he finally breaks the promise he made to himself.”

Aldo Marín Piñones is a “time bomb,” said Castro-San Martín. And so is his film.

“Each scene silently builds toward an inevitable explosion, like a spark slowly traveling along a fuse. Everything is about to detonate. We know something is going to happen, but we don’t know when or how.”