This Is The Way I Like It / One Hundred Children Waiting for a Train

Director Ignacio Agüero interrupts the production of a film that is taking place in Chile during 1984 to ask the filmmakers what is the point of filming in Chile under the Pinochet dictatorship /// A documentary about a film workshop for children given by Alicia Vega, a teacher in a marginal quarter of Santiago, to kids whose common characteristic is that they have never been to the movies. One hundred years after the invention of cinema one hundred children go to the movies for the first time . They tell their experience in a film they shall make with drawings on paper frames.

image from one hundred children waiting for a train
This is the Way I Like It / One Hundred Children Waiting for a Train

Como me da la gana
Chile / 28 min / 1985 / doc
in Spanish with English subtitles
Direction: Ignacio Agüero
Screenplay: Ignacio Agüero
Cinematography: Cristián Lorca, Juan Forch, Jorge Roth, Jaime Rippes
Editing: Fernando Valenzuela

Trailer

Cien niños esperando un tren
Chile / 28 min / 1985 / doc
in Spanish with English subtitles
Direction: Ignacio Agüero
Screenplay: Ignacio Agüero
Cinematography: Jorge Roth, Jaime Reyes
Editing: Fernando Valenzuela

Trailer

A lesson in political cinema. How to film under a dictatorship? Under the cover of making documentaries about potentially frivolous subjects, such as a film shoot and a film workshop for children, Ignacio Agüero gets right to the heart of what it means to live in Chilean society under Pinochet. There is a limit to the filmmaker's self-expression, a shadow that stalks them and won't let them say what they want to say. And when he films the poverty and lack of education of the children, Agüero is able to get away with it by juxtaposing it against the activities of the workshop, tying his investigation and critique to the laughter and curiosity of the children. Who could object? Again, a beautiful lesson in political cinema, no slogans, no shouting - simply a work of intelligence and curiosity.