By Michael Sicinski

Those discovering Patricio Guzmán’s latest documentary at TIFF are in for a much more bittersweet experience than those who caught its world premiere in Cannes. That’s because the film concludes with a rather spectacular bit of hope. Guzmán shows how the mass protests that began on October 18, 2019 resulted in a movement to draft a new constitution, replacing the one that Pinochet enacted in the ’70s. My Imaginary Country speaks to several members of the constitutional assembly, who explain just how imperative it is that a democratic document replace the current Chilean constitution, one which was expressly designed to enable a fascist dictatorship and squelch dissent.

As we now know, voters in Chile rejected the new constitution by a 2-to-1 majority. Predictably, the global press celebrated this loss. The editors of The Economist nearly wet themselves with delight, and the Jeff Bezos–owned Washington Post went out of its way to defend the corporate interests that helped engineer the defeat. You see, Chile is home to one of the world’s largest reserves of lithium, and the current president, Gabriel Boric, wants to partially nationalize those reserves. This would help the poorest Chileans, but it would hurt Elon Musk, and drive up the price of batteries. It’s almost as though the citizens of Chile forgot that their neoliberal function is to suffer for the greater good of first-world convenience.

Nevertheless, the documentary is a compact study in grassroots political action, a joyous chapter in Guzmán’s decades-long chronicle of his homeland. While it does cast a pall over My Imaginary Country knowing that the constitution has been rejected in its current form, Guzmán and company are insistent that mass social change is a slow, never-ending process. The September 4th vote is indeed a setback: among its other provisions, it enshrined women’s rights, including reproductive freedom; established Chile as a multi-ethnic state, with official recognition of the rights of Indigenous peoples; established a national health care system; required equal gender representation in public institutions; and firmly established LGBTQ rights. But Boric and his supporters indicate that they will redraft the document and hold another referendum, so the movement is not over.And this is the primary takeaway from My Imaginary Country. Changes that would have been unimaginable just ten years ago are now under serious consideration. There was always going to be pushback from the right-wing elites, the Catholic Church, and other conservative forces. But a spontaneous collective action about mass transit quickly proved capable of articulating a vision for a new nation. Those segments of Chilean society who have long been systematically disenfranchised took to the streets to demand a place at the table. Another world is possible, but it will take awhile.

Michael Sicinski