Program Note
Antonia, an actress and clinical psychologist, seeks to reconstruct a movie through the mind of one of her patients, a metalhead. In the dreams and monologues, boundaries of self, film and reality are blurred. The audience encounters Antonia transforming into a police officer and being transported to Antarctica, where Hitler is believed still living. Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña's The Hyperboreans is the second feature animation since The Wolf House (2018). Following their previous work, the duo’s daring artistic minds shine in combining various visual art forms including film, stop-motion animation, photography, installation and sculpture, tracing the remnants of the right-wing regime's legacy on modern Chilean society. The overlapping of narrations and images that span various topics and discourses, from Northern legends to psychology, history, and Nazism, provides a fascinating and complex cinematic experience. Perhaps it should be called a materialistic film of the 21st century, and although it is rare these days, it is an attempt that is all the more welcome and worthy of attention. (Jin PARK)