Short films

Short films

Entierro: Luz subterránea / Burial: Subterranean Light

2021

Experimental 16mm short, 15 minutes. Niles Atallah: Writer, Director, Editor, Cinematographer, Sound Designer, Image Post-Production and Colorist, Music: Sebastián Jatz Rawicz and Niles Atallah. Production: Diluvio (Chile). 16mm Transfer: Benjamín Echazarreta and Ceis8. Principal Cast: Rodrigo Lisboa and Gabriela Aguilera. 

Several reels of film are buried in a forest in southern Chile. Ten years later the films are unearthed from the soil and projected. Ghosts have appeared on the surface of the decaying celluloid, they are the protagonists of Niles Atallah’s earlier feature films “Lucia” and “Rey”. The fictional characters have returned to haunt the images, peering through the layers of earth, as if interested in us, the spectators who watch them. Who is looking at who? Why have these characters returned? What do they want? The film is a secret code written by the earth itself.

UMBRAL 4

Makoszay + Pontiggia + Zwirchmayr + Atallah + Colectivo Los Ingrávidos + Saïto

Raúl Ruiz pensó una manera de filmar situada “a mil leguas del cine narrativo actual”. Dicha forma sería el cine chamánico, un campo minado, un proceso que nos hiciera pasar el reino animal y vegetal antes de volver a lo humano. Algo de chamánico está presente en las películas que conforman esta selección, la curvatura de la luz sobre las montañas, soles danzantes, el cuerpo ante un espacio volcánico. Somos testigos de la fulguración de una imagen.

Karina Solórzano

FICUNAM — UMBRALES 0.1, pp. 118–119 (PDF)

Film entry — p. 120 (PDF)

Festivals and screenings

2022 FICUNAM, Mexico City — Umbrales / Umbral 4; world premiere. 

2022 Corriente, Arequipa, Peru — Continentes fílmicos: Fantasmagorías precipitadas. 

2024 Cinélatino, Toulouse, France — Otra mirada: Casa Creativa Diluvio. 

2025 CINETORO, Roldanillo, Colombia — ¿Lo que suena vive?; screening at INTEP. 

Images

Ojos enterrados

Commissioned by INVE for the collective film Fragmentum Cinema: Sueños, Ojos enterrados began as a short fragment made from buried film. It was the first step in a gradual process that led to Entierro: Luz subterránea / Burial: Subterranean Light, completed as a fuller short film during the pandemic.

2019

16mm short commissioned for the collective feature Fragmentum Cinema: Sueños. Niles Atallah: Writer, Director, Editor, Cinematographer, Sound, Image Post-Production and Colorist. 16mm Transfer: Benjamín Echazarreta and Ceis8. Principal Cast: Rodrigo Lisboa and Gabriela Aguilera. Created for the sixth Proceso de Error experimental-video festival in Valparaíso, organized by INVE Plataforma Experimental de Artes.

Festivals and screenings

Screenings of the collective feature Fragmentum Cinema: Sueños, which includes Ojos enterrados.

Festivals

2019 — 6th Proceso de Error, Festival Internacional de Video Experimental — Valparaíso, Chile. Premiere of the collective feature, organized by INVE Plataforma Experimental de Artes.

2019 — ULTRAcinema, Festival de Cine Experimental y Found Footage — Guelatao de Juárez, Oaxaca, Mexico.

2020 — Bogotá Experimental Film Festival — Bogotá, Colombia; online edition. Invited programme: “Fragmentum Cinema: Sueños — Proceso de Error.”

Other exhibitions and screenings

2019 — Massapê Projetos — São Paulo, Brazil. International premiere, recorded by Cinechile on 21 November 2019.

2020 — VutaMuseo, Museo de Arte Moderno Chiloé — Chiloé, Chile; virtual exhibition. The museum presented the collective feature in its exhibition running from May to August 2020.