Dialogues of the Exiles

In 1974, forced into exile after the violent military coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power, Ruiz fled Chile for Paris. He’d hardly been living there more than a month when he started filming this ironic, thinly fictionalized depiction of the city’s Chilean exile community and its tense rapport with its allies on the French left. Much of Dialogues of the Exiles consists of documentary-style interviews with displaced Chileans and staged conversations in which divisive questions emerge—how should Chilean exiles represent their country abroad? What kind of political engagement can they keep up? How well can they get on with their well-meaning but somewhat clueless French benefactors? The film caused controversy for its sometimes unflattering view of the exile community, but it confirmed Ruiz’s position as a fiercely observant filmmaker with an unsentimental view of the political defeat he and his compatriots had suffered. Restored by the Cinémathèque française with the support from CNC.