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Santiago Files | |
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Directed by | Cetywa Powell |
Written by | Cetywa Powell |
Starring | Ariel Dorfman Isabel Allende Judd Kessler |
Narrated by | Malcolm McDowell |
Cinematography | Ammon Ehrisman Tim Laurel |
Edited by | Drew Lahat |
Music by | Paul Foss |
Release date |
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Running time | 70 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Santiago Files, directed by Cetywa Powell, is a feature-length documentary film about Salvador Allende's topple from Chile's unstable government and the players in his downfall: the CIA, Chile's military, and Allende himself. Malcolm McDowell narrates the film, which premiered in September 2011.
The documentary is in the permanent collection of the American Documentary Film Festival's archives (AmDocs), housed at the Rancho Mirage Library in Palm Springs.
CIA documents on Salvador Allende were released to the public in 2000. Santiago Files tells its story through CIA documents, taped conversations with Richard Nixon discussing Allende, interview clips with former Director of the CIA, Richard Helms, interview clips with Henry Kissinger, and interview clips with Salvador Allende.
"The most memorable conclusion I can recall from the film [Santiago Files], was that Allende had been a leader – and whenever a leader arises in Latin America, the US finds a way to get rid of him. We played a role, but the Chileans made this happen. We invested $10 million in supporting opposition groups and media. Even in that time, it wasn't very much. The fact is that after the decisions he made in the first year, time was not on his side. Unless he could control his own coalition – which he couldn't – the downward cycle was just going to continue." - Judd L. Kessler (Regional Legal Advisor at the U.S. Embassy, 1970–1973)
Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 3 November 1970 until his death on 11 September 1973. He was the first Marxist to be elected president in a liberal democracy in Latin America.
Isabel Angélica Allende Llona is a Chilean writer. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the genre magical realism, is known for novels such as The House of the Spirits and City of the Beasts, which have been commercially successful. Allende has been called "the world's most widely read Spanish-language author." In 2004, Allende was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2010, she received Chile's National Literature Prize. President Barack Obama awarded her the 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Charles Edmund Lazar Horman was an American journalist and documentary filmmaker. He was executed in Chile in the days following the 1973 Chilean coup d'état led by General Augusto Pinochet, which overthrew the socialist president Salvador Allende. Horman's death was the subject of the 1982 Costa-Gavras film Missing, in which he was portrayed by actor John Shea.
Vladimiro Ariel Dorfman is an Argentine-Chilean-American novelist, playwright, essayist, academic, and human rights activist. A citizen of the United States since 2004, he has been a professor of literature and Latin American Studies at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina, since 1985.
United States intervention in Chilean politics started during the War of Chilean Independence (1812–1826). The influence of United States in both the economic and the political arenas of Chile has since gradually increased over the last two centuries, and continues to be significant.
The 1973 Chilean coup d'état was a military coup in Chile that deposed the Popular Unity government of President Salvador Allende. On 11 September 1973, after an extended period of social unrest and political tension between the opposition-controlled Congress and the socialist President, as well as economic war ordered by U.S. President Richard Nixon, a group of military officers led by General Augusto Pinochet seized power in a coup, ending civilian rule.
Salvador Allende was the president of Chile from 1970 until his 1973 suicide, and head of the Popular Unity government; he was a Socialist elected to the national presidency of a liberal democracy in Latin America. In August 1973 the Chilean Senate declared the Allende administration to be "unlawful," Allende's presidency was ended by a military coup before the end of his term. During Allende's three years, Chile gradually transitioned into a socialist state.
General René Schneider Chereau was the commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army at the time of the 1970 Chilean presidential election, when he was assassinated during a botched kidnapping attempt. He coined the doctrine of military-political mutual exclusivity that became known as the Schneider Doctrine.
Roberto Urbano Viaux Marambio was a Chilean Army General and the primary planner of two attempted coup d'états in Chile in 1969 and 1970. The first was against President Eduardo Frei Montalva, and the second sought to prevent Socialist Salvador Allende's election.
María Isabel Allende Bussi is a Chilean politician.
El Mercurio is a Chilean newspaper with editions in Valparaíso and Santiago. Its Santiago edition is considered the country's newspaper of record and it is considered the oldest daily in the Spanish language currently in circulation. El Mercurio is owned by El Mercurio S.A.P., which operates a network of 19 regional dailies and 32 radio stations across the country.
Project FUBELT is the codename for the secret Central Intelligence Agency operations that were to prevent Salvador Allende's rise to power before his confirmation and to promote a military coup in Chile. This project came after the circumstantial failure of Track I, which involved making president Eduardo Frei Montlava interfere with the 1970 national election in opposition to Allende.
Roberto Federico Souper Onfray was a Chilean military officer who launched an unsuccessful coup d'état against the Allende administration, surrounding the presidential palace with a tank regiment. Twenty-two civilians were killed during the brief coup attempt, including Leonardo Henrichsen, a Swedish-Argentine news photographer filming the events.
Thomas Hercules Karamessines was the Deputy Director for Plans of the United States Central Intelligence Agency from July 31, 1967 until February 27, 1973. Karamessines was actively involved in the Agency's Project FUBELT to undermine the government of Chilean president Salvador Allende.
On September 11, 1973, Salvador Allende, president of Chile, died from gunshot wounds during a coup d'état led by Augusto Pinochet, commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army. After decades of suspicions that Allende might have been assassinated by the Chilean Armed Forces, a Chilean court in 2011 authorized the exhumation and autopsy of Allende's remains. A team of international experts examined the remains and concluded that Allende had shot himself with an AK-47 assault rifle. In December 2011, the judge in charge of the investigation affirmed the experts' findings and ruled Allende's death a suicide. On September 11, 2012, the 39th anniversary of Allende's death, a Chilean appeals court unanimously upheld the trial court's ruling, officially closing the case.
Salvador Allende is a 2004 documentary film about Chilean president Salvador Allende, from his election campaign to the coup d'état which ended his life. It was directed by Patricio Guzmán and screened out of competition at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.
Mercedes Hortensia Bussi Soto was the wife of Chilean President Salvador Allende. She was married to him from 1940 until he committed suicide during the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, serving as First Lady of Chile from 1970 to 1973. Her daughters are Beatriz, Isabel and Carmen Paz.
Frank Teruggi, Jr. (1949–1973) was an American student, journalist, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World, from Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the victims of General Augusto Pinochet's military shortly after the September 11, 1973 Pinochet coup d'état against Socialist President Salvador Allende.
The Pinochet File is a National Security Archive book written by Peter Kornbluh covering over approximately two decades of declassified documents, from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), White House, and United States Department of State, regarding American covert activities in Chile. It is based on more than 24,000 previously classified documents that were released as part of the Chilean Declassification Project during the Clinton administration, between June 1999 and June 2000.
Agustín Iván Edmundo Edwards Eastman was a Chilean newspaper publisher, and one of the richest people in Chile. He inherited his family's newspaper company El Mercurio SAP, which publishes Chile's leading national dailies El Mercurio and La Segunda among others, when his father died in 1956. He has been described as a media baron, and is known for his right-wing views. Throughout his time as publisher, he has used El Mercurio SAP's newspapers to influence public opinion in Chile, and he supported the 1973 coup d'état to oust socialist President Salvador Allende.