Chicago Boys | |
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Directed by | Carola Fuentes Rafael Valdeavellano |
Written by | Carola Fuentes Rafael Valdeavellano |
Produced by | Carola Fuentes Rafael Valdeavellano Herta Mladinic |
Cinematography | Pablo Valdés Sebastián Caro |
Edited by | Rafael Valdeavellano |
Music by | Gabriel Pulido |
Production company | La Ventana Producciones |
Release date |
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Running time | 85 minutes |
Country | Chile |
Language | Spanish |
Chicago Boys is a Chilean documentary, written and directed by Carola Fuentes and Rafael Valdeavellano and released in November 2015. [1] The film tells the story of the Chicago Boys, a group of Chilean economists trained at the Catholic University of Chile who, after conducting graduate studies at the University of Chicago under professor Arnold Harberger, return to their country and, after Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship (1973–1990), become the main ideologues of the neoliberal economic model in Chile. [2]
Marcos Orlando Letelier del Solar was a Chilean economist, politician and diplomat during the presidency of Salvador Allende. A refugee from the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, Letelier accepted several academic positions in Washington, D.C. following his exile from Chile. In 1976, agents of Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA), the Pinochet regime's secret police, assassinated Letelier in Washington via the use of a car bomb. These agents had been working in collaboration with members of the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations, a U.S.-sponsored anti-Castro militant group.
The Chicago Boys were a group of Chilean economists prominent around the 1970s and 1980s, the majority of whom were educated at the Department of Economics of the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger, or at its affiliate in the economics department at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Upon their return to Latin America they adopted positions in numerous South American governments including the military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990). As economic advisors, many of them reached high positions within those governments. While the Heritage Foundation credits them with transforming Chile into Latin America's best performing economy and one of the world's most business-friendly jurisdictions, critics point to drastic increases in unemployment that can be attributed to counter-inflation policies implemented on their advice.
Neoliberalism, or neo-liberalism, is a term used to describe the 20th-century resurgence of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism. A significant factor in the rise of conservative and libertarian organizations, political parties, and think tanks, and predominately advocated by them, it is generally associated with policies of economic liberalization, including privatization, deregulation, globalization, free trade, austerity and reductions in government spending in order to increase the role of the private sector in the economy and society; however, the defining features of neoliberalism in both thought and practice have been the subject of substantial scholarly debate.
The "Miracle of Chile" was a term used by economist Milton Friedman to describe the reorientation of the Chilean economy in the 1980s and the effects of the economic policies applied by a large group of Chilean economists who collectively came to be known as the Chicago Boys, having studied at the University of Chicago where Friedman taught. He said the "Chilean economy did very well, but more importantly, in the end the central government, the military junta, was replaced by a democratic society. So the really important thing about the Chilean business is that free markets did work their way in bringing about a free society." The junta to which Friedman refers was a military government that came to power in a 1973 coup d'état, which came to an end in 1990 after a democratic 1988 plebiscite removed Augusto Pinochet from the presidency.
An authoritarian military dictatorship ruled Chile for seventeen years, between September 11, 1973, and March 11, 1990. The dictatorship was established after the democratically-elected socialist government of Salvador Allende was overthrown in a US-backed coup d'état on September 11, 1973. During this time, the country was ruled by a military junta headed by General Augusto Pinochet. The military used the breakdown of democracy and the economic crisis that took place during Allende's presidency to justify its seizure of power. The dictatorship presented its mission as a "national reconstruction." The coup was the result of multiple forces, including pressure from conservative groups, certain political parties, union strikes and other domestic unrest, as well as international factors. According to lifelong CIA operative Jack Devine, although it was widely reported that the CIA was directly involved in orchestrating and carrying out the coup, subsequently released sources suggest a much reduced role of the US government.
Arnold Carl Harberger is an American economist. His approach to the teaching and practice of economics is to emphasize the use of analytical tools that are directly applicable to real-world issues. His influence on academic economics is reflected in part by the widespread use of the term "Harberger triangle" to refer to the standard graphical depiction of the efficiency cost of distortions of competitive equilibrium. His influence on the practice of economic policy is manifested by the high positions attained in national agencies such as central banks and ministries of finance, and in international agencies such as the World Bank.
Hernán Alberto Büchi Buc is a Chilean economist who served as minister of finance of the Pinochet government. In 1989 he ran unsuccessfully for president with support of Chilean right-wing parties.
Juan Martín Cueva Armijos is an Ecuadorian documentary film director and the director of the Filmfestival "Cero Latitud" in Quito. His documentary film "Where the poles meet" won the Best Documentary at the IX Festival Internacional de Cine de Valdivia in Chile and at the Brouillon d’un reve de la Scam in Paris in 1999.
Chilean cinema refers to all films produced in Chile or made by Chileans. It had its origins at the start of the 20th century with the first Chilean film screening in 1902 and the first Chilean feature film appearing in 1910. The oldest surviving feature is El Húsar de la Muerte (1925), and the last silent film was Patrullas de Avanzada (1931). The Chilean film industry struggled in the late 1940s and in the 1950s, despite some box-office successes such as El Diamante de Maharajá. The 1960s saw the development of the "New Chilean Cinema", with films like Three Sad Tigers (1968), Jackal of Nahueltoro (1969) and Valparaíso mi amor (1969). After the 1973 military coup, film production was low, with many filmmakers working in exile. It increased after the end of the Pinochet regime in 1989, with occasional critical and/or popular successes such as Johnny cien pesos (1993), Historias de Fútbol (1997) and Gringuito (1998).
Pablo Larraín Matte is a Chilean filmmaker. He has directed eight feature films and co-directed one television series, including the Academy Award-nominated films No (2012) and Jackie (2016). In 2017, Larraín and his brother Juan de Dios were the producers of Sebastián Lelio's A Fantastic Woman, which was the first Chilean film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2021, he directed all eight episodes of the psychological romance horror miniseries Lisey's Story.
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