Power outages, repression and fear, was the context where the teacher and researcher, Alicia Vega, began her film workshops for girls and boys from marginal sectors. A work that began in the dictatorship and continued for 30 years, with the purpose that cinema was not only a form of entertainment, but an opportunity for learning and transformation in the face of adversity that vulnerable childhood lived and lives.
“It seems to me that they are the ones who are suffering the most at this time in the country. They have a marginalization not only in the physical aspect, but also in the spiritual aspect … and their creativity is unable to express itself”, The filmmaker warned in 1987 when she made the third version of the“ Children’s Film Workshop ”in the Lo Hermida town in the Peñalolén commune.
Alicia Vega in the “Children’s Film Workshop”. Source: Chile Cinema
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Viewing of films, classes on cinema, elaboration of artisan objects that mixed the image and the movement and even artistic exhibitions, were the activities that reached more than 6,500 boys and girls from marginalized sectors. For this reason, in a new Inforgettable Women, the weekly special where we highlight women from history and the present, we make visible the trajectory and impact of Alicia Vega in the lives of thousands of children who, at that time, had not even known a cinema .
Film workshops in dictatorship
“We are interested in having you put if you have ever gone to the cinema (…) if you have gone to the cinema, write down the movie you saw,” requested the teacher and researcher, Alicia Vega. “No”, “never”, “I have not seen”were the responses of the children of the Lo Hermida population in 1987. Most had never set foot in a movie theater, however, the filmmaker understood this situation not as an isolated event, but as an inequality that had to be fought.
Every Saturday at 10 in the morning, for six months, in a chapel, dozens of boys and girls gathered to attend film workshops during the dictatorship. “We are interested that the child who has not seen any movie, because he has never been to a cinema, knows that from now on that does not matter“Were the words that began the only workshop recorded in the documentary” One Hundred Children Waiting for a Train “by director Ignacio Aguero.
What allowed the film workshops to take place in a context of repression and violation of rights was that “The work we did in the towns was of no importance to anyone. Sometimes the power was cut in the population, but those were repressions that were regularly. But we were cautious: we had a huge cable of many meters to draw light from the neighboring population, ”Alicia Vega recalled in an interview for the Diario and Radio Universidad de Chile in 2017.
“Cinema Workshop for Children”, Lo Hermida Population (1987). Source: documentary “One hundred children waiting for a train” by Ignacio Agüero
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In such an adverse scenario, “the workshops were an important contribution in the life of each one, because it allowed them to recover their childhood”, Highlighted Alicia Vega for the Educarchile.cl web portal.
A 30-year struggle for marginalized children
“I know that violence returns and poverty continues, but I also know that cinema is one of the most captivating experiences that exist. There in the darkness of the room, along with other similar beings, I am moved by the beauty of certain images. Witnessing how children feel these same experiences has been one of the greatest joys I have ever had “writes Alicia Vega in the introduction to the book” Children’s Film Workshop “, published in 2012.
It was 30 years where he held 35 workshops, each lasting more than five months and where more than 6,500 girls and boys participated in the initiative. The historical context changed, but access to culture remains a latent problem. “The child must be attended to in its complexity, because it is not only a machine for receiving knowledge. There has to be a development not only of their intelligence, but of their creativity”, The researcher warned in a conversation in Punta Arenas in 2015.
In this sense, the problem is no longer that children do not have any access to culture, but in how this approach to the arts is being allowed and valued and how it becomes even more complex in marginal contexts.
Photo of Alicia Vega in “Children’s Film Workshops”. Source: Women Bacanas
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“I gave children who had nothing, something that for me it was very natural to give it up and that for them was a source of growth,” the researcher highlighted at the Punta Arenas discussion.
Five years ago the last Children’s Film Workshop was held, a heritage and struggle spanning three decades that will undoubtedly transcend history, because Alicia Vega did not simply bring cinema to the populations, but brought art and culture to thousands of girls and boys who have been deprived of access to this human right.
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