PRIMERA Film Screening - Detroit

4126 3rd Avenue,Detroit MI 48201

11 June, 2022

Description

On October 18, 2019 hundreds of high school students in Santiago gathered to protest a proposed public metro fare hike of $.30 pesos. Within hours, President Sebastian Piñera deployed the military to quell student demonstrators. Reports of torture, sexual abuse and death at the hands of the armed forces began to surface the next day. The government’s response was eerily reminiscent of the deadly tactics used by General Pinochet during the dictatorship period of the 70s and 80s. Within three days, approximately two million Chileans staged nationwide protests in support of students. For everyday Chileans, the $.30 pesos came to symbolize 30 years of an unsuccessful neoliberal model designed by US economists that promised economic prosperity with the country’s pivot to democracy in 1990. Instead, income inequality has widened steadily between the rich and the poor. The nation’s wealth has largely remained in the hands of six powerful families, including that of President Piñera. Over the course of 2020, discontent among Chileans evolved into a nation-wide uprising that calls for an end to income and social inequity. This massive people’s movement demands that a new constitution—driven by principles of equity, inclusion and justice—be written by everyday people. In the face of continued police repression, millions of Chileans took to the streets for nearly a year, never once letting go of their demands for a new constitution. Under relentless public pressure, the government agreed to schedule a historic plebiscite to determine the fate of the existing social contract. On October 25, 2020, Chileans overwhelmingly voted [80%] to rewrite their constitution with a plurality of women and indigenous people as its authors.