El Mar y la Dictadura
2022 / 102:35 min. (5 x 20:31 min.) / English title: THE SEA AND THE DICTATORSHIP / Country of production: HUNGARY / Directed, filmed and edited by: MANUEL F CONTRERAS Project supervision: TÜNDE VARGA
Sergio Tabeira, communist, managed to escape the Uruguayan military dictatorship in 1974 and start a new life in Budapest. Judith Klein's parents survived the Nazi holocaust and fled with her to Brazil when communism set foot in Hungary. Pablo Fritz is 46 and lives in Budapest since he was 4, yet he sees himself as a Chilean. His father was one of the “disappeared” by the Pinochet dictatorship. Susana Kertész's parents left for Venezuela when communism started in Hungary, she decided to come back at 53, leaving Chavez's socialism behind. Francisco Pellicer is in Hungary a man of righ-wing views, but not in Latin America. He hasn't been to his native Cuba in 35 years and now at 64 the only thing that he will always miss is the sea. This ensemble of stories shows how communism and capitalism exerted parallel power both in Eastern Europe and Latin America. The stories are the sequels of those systems that created a division we still live in. El Mar y la Dictadura (The Sea and the Dictatorship) is a 5-channel video installation. Each video is 20:31 minutes long showing each one of the characters while they talk to Manuel F Contreras, telling the story of their life in a simple yet affectionate conversation. All of them reside in Budapest. The stories simultaneously unfold giving an impression of confinement inside a cycle that keeps repeating itself.
Installation videos
- Három Hét Galéria - Oct 2 - 7 / 2020 Budapest
- 2B Gallery - March 26 - April 19 / 2019 Budapest
- Cervantes Institute - Nov 28 - Dec 20 / 2018 Budapest