My Brothers Dream Awake

(Mis hermanos sueñan despiertos)

Claudia Huaiquimilla / Chile / 2021 / 85 min
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  • Locarno Film Festival

    Concorso Cineasti del presente

  • Guadalajara Int'l Film Festival

    Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Actor

  • Cinélatino Rencontres de Toulouse

    Best Film, Audience Award

  • Ariel Awards

    Best Ibero-American Film Nominee

  • CineLatino-CineEspañol in Tübingen

    Audience Award

  • São Paulo Int'l Film Festival

  • Valdivia Int'l Film Festival

  • Chicago Int'l Film Festival

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Spanish with English subtitles

With Iván Cáceres, César Herrera, Paulina García

Ángel and his younger brother Franco have been incarcerated in a juvenile prison for a year. Despite the difficulties, they have formed a solid group of friends with whom they spend their days sharing dreams of freedom. Everything changes when the arrival of a rebellious young man offers a possible escape: the only door to make those dreams come true.

Based on real events, Mapuche director Claudia Huaiquimilla paints a complex image of imprisoned youth clearly depicting the love and care they show toward each other day by day. These moments of love, joy, and care illuminate a warm, tender side of these young people, who are usually reduced to the stereotypical patterns of savagery, aggression, and other uncontrollable behavior.

Press

“This film, shot during the Chilean uprising and completed during a global health crisis, resonates powerfully with social demands that are taking place in Chile. My Brothers Dream Awake paints a portrait of adolescent dreams burned by the system.” – Anna Bados, Vanja Munjin, Variety

“Warm and evocative, it will break your heart.” – Locarno Critics Academy

“The austerity and modesty that prevail in most of the scenes are in addition to the sensitivity that emerges in the small observations and the richness of the details...In these nuances lies the main value of a noble and genuine film that ratifies the good artistic path of its director.” – Diego Batlle, Otroscines

“Huaiquimilla is far more interested in how these imprisoned young men and women create a sense of community on their own and how they cope in this sterile, squeaky-clean environment, than on why they are there.” – Alejandro A. Riera, Mano Magazine

About the Director
Claudia Huaiquimilla is a Mapuche director, scriptwriter, and producer. She has taught film and screenwriting at the Universidad Católica, Universidad de Chile, and Escuela de Cine. Her first short film Saint John’s Eve (2013) was awarded at Clermont Ferrand. Contextualized in the Mapuche conflict, she writes and directs her first feature film Bad Influence (2016), winner of 40 awards and was released in commercial cinemas in Chile and France. My Brothers Dream Awake is her second feature film.

Huaiquimilla is currently co-directing and co-writing the first Netflix original series in Chile, 42 Days In The Dark.

Notes on Film

“I’ve always been motivated to work with stories of minors that society classifies as “terrible children” or “bad apples”, placing the audience in their points of view to understand the fuel behind their actions. One of the most powerful tools that cinema has is to give privileged access to the feeling of someone very different and to generate empathy with him. My Brothers Dream Awake does not seek to clarify what happened, but rather to sensitize the viewer, giving them privileged access to the daily life of a group of children deprived of liberty, allowing their fragility and hidden beauty to emerge. After many visits I did to juvenile prisons while exhibiting Bad Influence, I learned a lot about these boys and their courage to face their lives. The viewer will discover a world behind bars without prejudice, observing the bonds of brotherhood that can arise in the least expected places.”

– Claudia Huaiquimilla, Director

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