Q&A with Camila José Donoso

As with her previous features, Naomi Campbel and Casa Roshell (Art of the Real, 2015 and 2017), Chilean filmmaker Camila José Donoso’s richly detailed film fully immerses the viewer in its world, mixing digital, video, and 16mm to portray its beautifully ambivalent subject. At 66, Nona (Josefina Ramirez, José Donoso’s grandmother) lives alone and is recuperating from cataract surgery while a mysterious fire rages across southern Chile and generates unrest in her otherwise sleepy town. Capturing her routines and relationships while folding in past memories and a violent pathology with the present, Nona. If they soak me, I’ll burn them. is as much an allegory of contemporary Chile as it is a deeply personal character study.

Preceded by:
A Local Kind of God / Un dios local
Benjamín Naishtat, Argentina, 2018, 6m
North American Premiere
An experimental travelogue through India and its people, worshiping ancient gods and selfies.