View the film series program

Series curated by Javier Guerrero (Princeton University) & Juana Suárez (New York University)

Marking the 50th anniversary, this September 11, of the military coup against President Allende in Chile, this retrospective is dedicated to Alfredo Castro, the internationally acclaimed Chilean actor whose work is essential to a deep exploration of the cruelty of the dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet (1973-1989). Inspired by the French playwright Antonin Artaud, Castro has theorized the ‘third body,’ a key concept in the study of unknown and unconfessed human drives. In this retrospective, we privilege Castro’s close, decades-long collaboration with the Chilean director Pablo Larraín.

“As an actor, I invoke the most primitive and unlearned parts of myself, memory and oblivion from another time and place, to unleash a ghost that can stage the desired scenes, the most ominous and cruel ones, which definitively activate my organism.” Alfredo Castro.

“Throughout my career I have understood that the act of playing another person requires ending the separation between the actor’s body and the fictional body of the character, allowing for a dissolution of one into the other. This leads me to believe in the existence of a third body, a mediating body between the actor and the character.” Alfredo Castro.

“It is difficult to determine the border between fiction and reality in Pablo Larraín’s filmography. That is why I approach the characters that I have played in his films from the point of view of testimony, like metabolized confessions that require me to inhabit the dangerous and confused limit of insanity… and in that way I get closer to portraying the aspects of life that cannot be portrayed.”  Alfredo Castro.

Event information (4th of 8)

Los perros / The Dogs (2017)
Director: Marcela Said
2017 / 94min / DC

Mariana (Antonia Zegers) is despised by her upper-class Chilean family. When she has an affair with her riding teacher and ex-colonel Juan (Alfredo Castro), the dalliance breaks down the invisible walls that protect her family from the past. Juan’s indictment and an attendant revelation change Mariana’s perception of her own father. 

“Alfredo Castro’s magnificent interpretation hides an unspeakable secret that has shaped, as many others, the history of a country. With this impressive interpretation, Castro embodies an impermeable man capable of going to the tomb without regrets.” —Series curators Javier Guerrero and Juana Suárez.

Series film screening titles, dates and locations:

Click on links to event posting.

El Conde -Tuesday October 31--Princeton University, East Pyne 010 6:00 pm
Tengo miedo torero / My Tender Matador - Wednesday November 1--Princeton University, East Pyne 010 5:30 pm
El Club / The Club - Thursday November 2—Fordham University, Keating Hall 3 (Rose Hill Campus) 6:00 pm
Los perros / The Dogs  - Friday November 3--Princeton University, East Pyne 010 6:00 pm
Post Mortem - Friday November 3-Metrograph 5:30 pm
El Conde - Friday November 3-Metrograph 8:15 pm
Tony Manero - Saturday November 4-Metrograph 2:20 pm
No - Saturday November 4-Metrograph 5:00 pm