Andrés Wood-Machuca (2004)

Chile, 1973. The film is is set during the last days of President Allende and the first days of Pinochet. Gonzalo Infante and Pedro Machuca are two eleven-year-old boys who live in Santiago, the former in a wealthy neighborhood and the latter in a recently created, illegal shantytown just a few blocks away. There is a huge invisible wall dividing these two separate worlds, a wall that some people, caught up in the revolutionary fervor of the times, want to break down. One of these hopeful dreamers is the headmaster at a private parochial school, Father McEnroe. With support from the parents of his students, he admits children from the poor shantytown families into his elitist school. He is determined they will learn to respect each other. That is why Pedro Machuca is in the same class as Gonzalo Infante. The friendship between them is full of discoveries and surprises. Artificial Eye




In 1973, in Santiago of Chile of the first socialist president democratically elected in a Latin-American country, President Salvador Allende, the principal of the Saint Patrick School, Father McEnroe (Ernesto Malbran) makes a trial of integration between students of the upper and lower classes. The bourgeois boy Gonzalo Infante (Matías Quer) and the boy from the slum Pedro Machuca (Ariel Mateluna) become great friends, while the conflicts on the streets leads Chile to the bloody and repressive military coup of General Augusto Pinochet on 11 September 1973, changing definitely their lives, their relationship and their country. (http://imdb.com/title/tt0378284/plotsummary)




Political unrest helps spawn and destroy a friendship between two schoolboys in this drama. In Chile in 1973, as the leadership of socialist president Salvador Allende was coming under fire from the nation's military leaders and the leaders of several powerful Western nations (including the United States), many in the country were inspired to address the issues of the vast gulf between Chile's rich and poor.




Father McEnroe (Ernesto Malbran), one of the headmasters of an exclusive private school, decides to confront this matter by giving a handful of poor children a full scholarship. Pedro Machuca (Ariel Mateluna) is one of the new students, and while he and his fellows are picked on by the school's bullies, Pedro is a brave kid who stands his ground, and he's soon befriended by Gonzalo Infante (Matías Quer), whose rich parents live in Santiago's wealthy suburbs. Gonzalo's family is standing on shaky ground these days; his mother (Aline Küppenheim) is having an affair, and his father (Francisco Reyes) finds himself at odds with her increasingly right-wing political views.




Gonzalo begins spending more time with Pedro and his family; he particularly likes Uncle Willi (Alejandro Trejo), who cheerfully sells flags to Chileans on both sides of the political fence, and develops a crush on Silvana (Manuela Martelli), Pedro's older cousin. But the political and economic differences that are dividing the country find their way into the school, leading to a rift between the two friends.