The cruelty of the dictatorship of Pinochettista reaches the Oscars with the “Beast”

Guillermo Azabal Los Angeles, March 15 One of the most terrible episodes of the Chilean military dictatorship has a woman's name. Ingrid Olderöck, who used prey dogs to torture dissidents, and his story led director Hugo Kova Rubias to the big screen of the short film “The Beast”. It was nominated for an Oscar for the best short animation of the year and has already won the respect and admiration of filmmakers such as Guillermo del Toro or Steven Spielberg. This film is about the cruelty of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). Olderök (1944-2001) was a little-known woman in society, as the victims remembered because of the cruelty she raged against the opponents of the regime. Knowing that part of the Chilean population would be wary of short films, Covarrubias (Santiago de Chile, 1977) told Efe: “We wanted to generate discussions and let people reflect. And for just over 15 minutes, this short film shows a social fracture that the Andean nation continues to experience today. The victim's retaliation and relatives still demand justice for the recent tragic past. Symbolism of textures Covarrubias uses a 'stop motion' technique that simulates movement through continuous still images, creating a contrast with the smooth texture of the material on which the production environment is built and the ceramics that distinguish the faces of the protagonists. “Porcelain looks solid, but at the same time fragile, and the rest of the components are made of very cheap materials that symbolize the poverty that was triggered during the dictatorship,” said the filmmaker. In addition, in the course of the animation, the character took into account the origin of Olderöck. “He was from a Nazi family and wanted to reflect with the image of a German porcelain doll.” “We try to deceive viewers with a gentle aesthetic typical of family movies, but we actually have a very fearsome cut.” The director, who set the genre of the film as a symbiosis between psychological thriller and human rights, explained. With this story inspired by real events, viewers will explore the insecurities of this intelligence agent. The scene that is revealed with his geography and repressed sexuality when his doubts stood in front of the mirror, contrasts with the iron image projected on the outside and the fearsome violence that he applied as an executioner. In this short film in which the protagonist turns from his love for dogs to a dark murderous instinct towards the animal itself as a result of a “unbalanced mind”, the question arises about human evil and why. Human rights in short animated films After a remarkable course of documentation, “Bestia” is devoted to the defense of human rights, without resorting to the documentary genre and necessarily fictitious a large part of the work. In addition, in an interview with Efe, Tevo Díaz, executive producer of the film, highlighted a “good combination” between the format of an animated short film and the promotion of fundamental rights. The short was awarded this weekend at the Annie Awards, the best animation award in the world, and in recent months it has won 30 more awards that have brought this Chilean work to Germany, Spain, Croatia, Argentina, Mexico and Japan. In just two weeks, “Bestia” will be able to select the winner for the Oscar Award for Best Animated Short Film. What Covarrubias did not rule out, he clearly dedicated himself to the survivors and admitted that he would “break his voice”, which disappeared from the dictatorship of Pinochettista. gac/bpm/rrt (Photo) (Video)