Director &: Screenwriter: Patricio Guzmán

Chile| Documentary | Spanish | 2022 | 83 Minutes

HISTORICAL TIMELINE

On September 11, 1973, General Augusto Pinochet seized power in Chile in a U.S.-backed military coup d'etat. He remained Chile's dictator for 18 years. His reign saw the execution of between 1,200 to 3,200 people, the internment of as many as 80,000 people, and the torture of tens of thousands.

Although General Pinochet was forced out in 1990, the constitution instituted under his rule remains in effect. The protest movement documented by Patricio Guzmán in My Imaginary Country transformed Chilean politics, and started the process of replacing the Pinochetera constitution with a constitution prioritizing gender equality, indigenous rights, and climate change.

Protest Movement and the New Constitution in Chile (2019-2022)

• October 7, 2019

High school students began a campaign of faredodging in response to a metro faire increase in Santiago, the capital city of Chile. Despite government attempts to control access to several metro stations, protests grow.

• October 18, 2019

Clashes between students and police escalate throughout the week, leading to the closure of the entire metro system and increasing police violence. President Sebastián Piñera deploys military and police, and describes the government as “at war with a powerful and relentless enemy" [i.e. the protestors].

• October 25, 2019

More than 1.2 million people take to the streets of Santiago to protest social inequality and demand President Piñera's resignation. By the end of 2019, 29 people have died, nearly 2,500 have been injured, and 2,840 have been arrested. Human rights organizations have received several reports of violations conducted against protesters by security forces, including mutilation, torture, sexual abuse, and sexual assault.

• October 28, 2019

President Piñera changes eight ministries of his cabinet in response to the unrest, including the dismissal of his Interior Minister Andrés Chadwick.

• November 15, 2019

Chile's National Congress agrees to schedule a national vote on rewriting the Constitution. Several political parties start the process of writing a new Constitution.

• October 25, 2020

After the vote is delayed due to COVID-19, 78% of Chileans vote in favor of a new Constitution.

• May 16, 2021

A Constitutional Convention is formed with 155 elected members. For the first time, 17 reserved seats are established for the 10 official indigenous groups.6 Also, the election system is designed to ensure gender parity, making it the first assembly of its kind in the world with an equal representation of men and women.

• November 18, 2021

Chilean security services end an investigation into the possible involvement of Cuban and Venezuelan agents in the protests due to lack of evidence.

• December 19, 2021

Gabriel Boric, a 35-year-old former student leader and constitutional agreement negotiator, is elected president of Chile. He becomes the youngest president in the country's history of the country following a runoff election against far-right candidate José Antonio Kast, whose father was a member of the Nazi party who had fled to Chile, and whose brother was General Pinochet’s labor minister.

• March 16, 2022

Gabriel Boric takes office as Chile's 37th president.

• May 16, 2022

Constitution Covention president María Elisa Quinteros presents the newly drafted Constitution. Among the rights and freedoms it enshrines are free higher education and gender parity across government. It also makes the state responsible for preventing, adapting to, and mitigating climate change. The new Consistution also eliminates Chile's senate in favor of a single-chamber legislature, and provides for the compensated restitution of Indigenous lands.

• September 4, 2022

Following widespread disinformation campaigns, the drafted Constitution was rejected in a national vote. However, the government remains mandated to continue work on constitutional reform and that process continues.