Family Life
Description
While housesitting for an estranged cousin who’s just left for Paris with his wife and young daughter, Martín takes the phrase “Make yourself at home” to the extreme. He sleeps in their bed, wears their clothes, and rearranges the furniture. After the family cat, Mississippi, disappears, he sparks a fiery romance with Pachi, a single mother. He welcomes Pachi and her young son into the home as if it’s his own, crafting a deceitful narrative out of the space and of his life, turning domestic living into a foolhardy theatrical indulgence. Adapting a short story by Alejandro Zambra with the author, luminary Chilean filmmakers Alicia Scherson (Il Futuro, Festival 2013) and Cristián Jiménez (Bonsái, Festival 2012) examine the slippery truth of identity with wry wit and freewheeling spontaneity, underlining the different roles we play not just in our relationships, but with ourselves when we’re alone. Family Life is a funhouse mirror of self-examination, one that turns intimate spaces inside out and reveals how even the most private corners of our lives—including something as innocent as a jar of Nutella—are not entirely safe from invasion. —Jesse Knight
Collaborating for the first time as co-directors with Family Life, Alicia Scherson and Cristián Jiménez are two of Chile’s most notable contemporary filmmakers. Scherson’s 2013 Il Futuro (Festival 2013) premiered at Sundance, and won the KNF Prize at the Rotterdam Film Festival. She is the founder of the production company La Ventura, under which she’s released numerous films since its inception in 2003. Jiménez’s most recent film, La Voz en Off premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2014, and his film Bonsái (Festival 2012) premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes.
Film Details
Language Spanish
Year 2017
Runtime 80
Country Chile
Director Alicia Scherson, Cristián Jiménez
Producer Carlos Olivares, Fernando Bascuñán
Writer Alejandro Zambra
Editor Soledad Salfate
Cinematographer Cristián Petit-Laurent
Music Caroline Chaspoul, Eduardo Henriquez
Cast Jorge Becker, Gabriela Arancibia, Blanca Lewin