Bastard. The Legacy of a Criminal

A Bastard and Pinochet’s Legacy is the story of Pepe, a young gay Chilean of 30, living in Italy, who returns to his home country and discovers that his biological father - a man whom he had never met - is none other than Colonel Rodrigo Retamal, the ex-chief of Chilean police intelligence. Retamal, we find out, has been condemned for human rights abuses, including the killing of six communist activists in 1973, during the first days of the Pinochet’s coup d’etat. He was punished 20 years later with one night in jail. After a moment of deep confusion, Pepe takes the astounding decision to meet his biological father and confront him. Taken by surprise, Colonel Retamal is extremely proud of his newfound son and opens his arms to Pepe, introducing him to his family and military entourage. Driven by his desperate need of connecting, Pepe tries to penetrate his father’s dark soul searching for a trickle of innocence or at least some sort of regret. With great difficulty, he succeeds in establishing a relationship but all crumbles when he reveals his homosexuality and is rejected once again. At the same time, Pepe meets the relatives of his father’s victims. He bonds with the wife of one of them, an activist still searching for justice for the killing of her husband. With her daughter, a theatre director, Pepe starts an artistic collaboration that will bring to the production of a theatre play on the murders perpetrated by Pepe’s father. The social unrest Chile is going through slowly but firmly emerges in the film, taking always more attention until the explosion of the urban revolts that see the young Chileans fighting against the institutions in the streets of Santiago de Chile. Pepe is one of the activists. It is the year 2019, the one that will bring the biggest political change since Pinochet＇s dictatorship: the writing of the country’s new constitution. The only political lever that will allow the Chilean society to overcome the system of impunity supported through all these years by the country’s corrupt economical establishment. A change confirmed by the December 2021 elections.