Only days after the 1973 military coup against the Allende government, a group of nineteen union members in a paper factory were disappeared without trace. The case remained a mystery for forty years, until a policeman involved in the massacre finally broke the pact of silence. Taking his confession alongside testimony from the victims’ families —all voiced by actors—the filmmakers forensically unravel the events leading to the murders, using stark 16mm photography to depict the landscape like a crime scene. A bold and formally rigorous work, The Crosses bravely unearths a dark moment in Chile’s political history that for years had been buried in silence.

UK Premiere

Supported by Cervantes Institute London

Followed by a Q&A with co-director Carlos Vásquez Méndez, hosted by Laura Allsop, a writer and critic based in London, whose writing has appeared in Dazed, AnOther and Sight & Sound

Read an essay on The Crosses by Jaime Grijalba

Nominated for the Open City Award

Teresa Arredondo was born in Lima, Perú (1978) and lives in Santiago de Chile. She studied psychology in 1995 and she got her degree in 2003. Teresa moved to Spain in 2006 for her Master’s Degree in Theory and Practice of Creative Documentary Making at UAB. She has directed the short films Días con Matilde (2011) and SIBILA (2012) and The Crosses is her second feature.

Carlos Vásquez Méndez is a filmmaker, artist and researcher. He lives and works between Barcelona and Santiago de Chile. Working in film and photography, his works establish constant correspondences between history social sciences and artistic practices. His feature film  [Pewen] Araucaria premiered at Cinéma du Réel 2016 and received the Joris Ivens / Center National des Plastiques Award for Best Opera Prima.