Zehn Tage, ein ganzes Leben / Journey into Exile - Tanja Hamilton
Chile, September 11th, 1973: Antonio Coloma is a city councilman for the Communist Party in the southern town of Temuco at the moment of the military coup against Salvador Allende. After 10 days of detention and torture he is able to escape to Germany. 30 years later he travels back to his home country. He is confronted with the resentment of his old party comrades and encounters the soldier, who three decades ago saved his life. The protagonists struggle to deal with the impossibility of objective truth and the difficulty of staying faithful to your ideals and beliefs in a dictatorship.
„Journey into Exile" is a story of how human relationships strain beneath the pressure of totalitarian systems. In the end remains the recognition that it is impossible to escape from the responsibility of one´s own actions. "Journey into Exile" is Tanja Hamilton´s thesis project at Filmacademy Baden-Württemberg.
The jury on Zehn Tage, ein ganzes Leben / Journey into Exile :
The Chilean Antonio Coloma, who fled to Germany in 1973, returns to Chile for a confrontation with the past.
Soon after Pinochet's coup d'etat he was detained, and then released conditionally. After that he was fortunate enough to be able to flee the country. He still lives in Germany with his wife and children.
In Chile, among other things, he goes in search of his old communist party comrades and the man he probably owes his life to: someone who was in charge of a military commando and recognised him during a razzia on a train, but he let him go anyway.
The jury finds this film the most enduring, best narrated and filmed story of all the entries. Antonio Coloma's personal search is a penetrating story yet it refrains from imposing emotions on the viewer. Even when Antonio is confronted with the disbelief of his communist ex-comrades ("was he really ever in prison?"), the film does not attempt to convince the viewer that Antonio is in the right. The viewers find themselves often doubting what was, is, and could have been.
'Journey into Exile' is thus also a film about memory, about recollection: people who have experienced the same things seem to store them in their memories each in their own way.
The film is nuanced, even suspenseful: who is the officer who recognised Antonio on the train? And why didn't he arrest him? Will Antonio be able to find him or is he already dead, like so many of those involved back then?
'Journey into Exile' also makes deliberate use of fragments of the last radio speech by President Salvador Allende, during the bombardments of the presidential palace. More than thirty years after the fact, the speech is still gripping.
Tanja Hamilton was born in 1972 in Wiesbaden and grew up in the U.S.A. and Germany.
1992 - 1997 Studies of North American Studies, Latin American Studies and Political Science at Freie Universität Berlin.
1994 - 1995 Berlin School of Journalism. Work as a journalist for printmedia and televison.
1997-2004 studies at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg; major: Documentary
Directing.
Since 2002 at work as a freelance director of documentaries for
television and cinema
CREDITS
Original Title: 10 Tage, ein ganzes Leben
English Title: Journey into Exile
Language of the original work: German/Spanish
Subtitles: English
Country of production: Germany/Chile
Completion: September 2003
Director & Author : Tanja Hamilton
D.O.P: Claudia Rauch
Editor: Bettina Blickwede, Melanie Werwie
Sound: Kramer O'Neill
Coproducers: Filmakademie Ludwigsburg/SWR
Producer/ Worldwide rights/ Distribution:
Christian Drewing - Filmareal
Ludwigstr. 73 a
D-70176 Stuttgart
Tel +49 711 248 34 55
Fax +49 711 248 34 77
e-mail: info@filmareal.de
More information : www.filmareal.de
