Q&A

MVFF: Marilyn Mulford and Quique Cruz excavate Chile's dark past

Claudio Cruz was a teenager in Chile and a rising musician when the military deposed Salvador Allende in 1973. Shortly after Augusto Pinochet moved into the top job, Claudio was arrested, tortured and bounced for the next year from one detention camp to another. He was then deported, rather than disappeared, eventually migrating to Northern California and adopting a new name, Quique, and creating a new life. But his scars never fully healed. The end of the dictatorship, and Pinochet’s arrest, inspired Cruz to embark on the ambitious Archaeology of Memory: Villa Grimaldi, consisting of a musical suite, a book and a documentary. Veteran Bay Area filmmaker Marilyn Mulford (Chicano Park, Freedom on my Mind) collaborated with Cruz on the documentary, which has its U.S. premiere in the Mill Valley Film Festival in a pair of shows (one passed already, but one is upcoming, on Sunday, Oct. 12). Pensive, humanistic and ultimately inspiring, Archaeology of Memory uses Cruz’s quietly insistent acoustic songs, typically performed by an ensemble, as its heartbeat.

[SF360.org editor’s note: This is the second of three articles on local filmmakers in the 31st Mill Valley Film Festival, continuing through Oct. 12.]

topics: bay area, digital filmmaking, directors, documentary, music, political film, south american film