“History and geography” is an incorrect comedy that addresses the origins of Chile and its current identity through the world of theater. The film had its debut at Sanfic 2023, winning the award for Best Direction for Bernardo Quesney and Best Performance for Amparo Noguera.
The film is set in the city of San Felipe, where a former television star played by Noguera performs a theater production based on “La Araucana” by Alonso de Ercilla.
In addition to Amparo Noguera, “History & Geography” features performances by important actresses and well-known actors, such as Catalina Saavedra, Pablo Schwarz, Paloma Moreno, Paulina Urrutia and Steevens Benjamin.
Bernardo Quesney made his debut as a director at the age of 22 with “Efectos Especiales” (Best Feature Film at the Lima Digital Film Festival). In 2014 he wrote and directed “Natural Disasters”, a feature film premiered at SANFIC, then internationally in Havana and Chicago. He has directed more than 30 video clips in Chile, Argentina, Mexico and Spain, for artists such as Javiera Mena, Gepe, Colombia Parra, among others.
It all started with a theater workshop that Quesney attended several years ago.
“And in this theater workshop, I glimpsed many activities, many physical things that I am not used to doing. I studied cinema as theater. But I liked it, I let go, it helped me. And when I saw so much physical exercise and all this physical stuff, I felt that a theater workshop was a good setting for a film and above all to talk about issues and to talk about different visions and collide it, make it collide. Especially as a theater workshop. And I’m from San Felipe, I wanted to take him there,” he tells The counter.
The filmmaker wrote the script together with author Simón Soto, but one of the main challenges was defining the leading character played by Noguera.
“The idea was always of someone who came to his town to make the araucana. But it was difficult for us to focus it. And after a while of several versions of the script, we came to the conclusion that she was really something that interested me. It was like, what if it’s someone who doesn’t take her seriously because of her past?
“We don’t know what his past is and we started to generate. And to generate this, which is the comedy that I really like, but the comedy seen as something kind of sad. Like not being able to escape a comedy, especially a comedy that until recently could be seen on television. It is not something so far from our time. There is no need to play dumb there,” he says.
“So there I found very interesting materials. And above all mix it, since I am also from San Felipe and I travel a lot and come back, there is also regional culture. So mix these two visions, like the regional culture with the culture, not even the culture of Santiago, but like the television culture, and mix it and how they collide, it’s obvious that they are going to collide because they are two visions, like two totally contrary visions. On top of that, that generates a lot of comedy.”