Camila José Donoso

Camila’s films have passed in important festivals around the world including Rotterdam, BAFICI, Berlin, FICValdivia, and Art of the Real. In her first feature, Naomi Campbel (2013) co-directed with (...) Nicolás Videla), the viewer closely follows Yermén, a Santiago-based trans woman in search of funds that can turn viable a long-dreamed-of sex change operation. Her second feature, Casa Roshell (2017), was developed during a period of residency in Mexico City and takes place inside a nightclub run by one Roshell Terranova – a space of fantasies where all men who enter may transform into what they wish. Her most recent feature, Nona. If They Soak Me, I’ll Burn Them (2019), deals with issues of self-exile, love, and vengeance through the force of a sexagenarian main character inspired by the filmmaker’s grandmother. A trait passing indelibly throughout Camila’s work is that of human liberty, which includes the freedom for documentary registers to commingle with scenes fictionalized in close collaboration with the people in front of the camera. Her films are bound together by familial and communal ties of affection, closely bound to different forms of activism (such as feminism and LGBTQ), and grounded in collective memories of Chilean society’s recent decades. Together with their formal propositions, these unique “transfictions” (a term that the director herself likes to use) offer a refined and conscious process of binding life and film. They are works in continuous process of experimentation with textures, gauges, soundscapes, and characters residing both within and beyond the frame.