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TRAVESTI ODYSSEY2021, 96 minutes
Directed by Nicolás Videla
Produced by Nicolás Videla, Nicole Bonilla & Kevin Magne
CHILE / ARGENTINA
Spanish

International Premier at IDFA 2021
National Premier at FICVALDIVIA 2021





SYNOPSIS


The last function of the Travesti Odyssey Cabaret coincides with the social outbreak that took place in Chile on October 18, 2019. Amid riots, Anastasia struggles to reunite all former members of a fractured cast, but Maraka, their best friend, doesn't want to continue with the play.
Amnesia, a filmmaker and the last remaining artist of the company, embarks on a cinematic odyssey through archives and interviews with a group of friends whose historical disputes reveal, behind glitter, feathers, and threads, the complexities of friendship, heritage and community in this patriarchal system.








TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Release date: 2021
Running time: 96 minutes
Shot in Full HD, 8mm and Super8
Available for screenings in DCP and H.264
Image format: 16:9
Sound format: 5.1 and stereo
Original language: Spanish
Subtitles: English, French




CAST & CREW

Cast: Anastasia Benavente, Maraka Bastarda, Madame de Papel, Sofía Devenir, Noelia le Shalá, Amnesia Letal
Direction, Screenwriting and Editing: Nicolás Videla
Production: Nicole Bonilla, Nicolás Videla
Production Management: Nicole Bonilla, Kevin Magne, Nicolás Videla
Co-production: Mario Durrieu, Walter Tiepelmann
Photography and Camera: Nicolás Videla
Direct Sound: Nicolás Videla, Kevin Magne, Andre Millán
Art Design: Francisca Celume
Sound Design: Andre Millán
Original Score: Sofía Devenir, Anastasia María Benavente, Carlos Tardel
Music Production: Paulo Rojas
Sound Postproduction: Joel Naud, Cristián Freund
VFX: Euge Choque, Julián Freijo
Color: Darío Órdenes
Translation and Subtitles: Utopía Traductions
Poster Design: Rami Soto
Co-Production Company: 996 Films
National Distribution: Miradoc











FESTIVALS



FICVALDIVIA 2021 (Chile)
Honourable Mention



IDFA International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2021 (Netherlands)




FIDOCS 2021 (Chile)
Jury’s Honourable Mention


FICIQQ 2021 (Chile)
Best Internation Feature Film





Thessaloniki Documentary Festival 2022 (Greece)



FICVIÑA 2022 (Chile)
Best Documentary




Queer Lisboa 2022 (Portugal)



Chéries-Chéris Festival de Cine LGBTQ 2022 (France)









PRESS & REVIEWS


On Oct. 18, 2019, just as tensions amid the Chilean protests throughout Santiago began to boil over, the final performance of the Travesti Odyssey Cabaret ended and with it a personal era for filmmaker Nicolás Videla; one filled with vibrant expression, tumultuous relationships, and love. “Travesti Odyssey” is Videla’s dig through the time capsule, a documentary reflecting on a chapter drenched in hilarity and sensitivity, and one shown through the scratchy lens of Mini DV and VHS memories.

” 

– JD Linville, VARIETY

From the many documentary films you might see over time, watching Travesti Odyssey is one you will remember. And you will do so because it will make you feel uneasy and push you out of your comfort zone to the point of feeling privileged. Trans stories are told mainly by outsiders through their lens and understanding. Instead, Travesti Odyssey is an insider’s story, an unapologetic dive into a world that feels raw, suspended out of your reality, and yet so real and so close to the very elements that make a human life: the personal histories, the sex, the primal need to belong and to be seen, and the struggle to turn one’s life battles and discomforts into a coherent sense of being true to self. And just as the troupe kept turning struggle into activism performance, Videla’s film turns the stories of what happened in their lives and behind the scene into art.


Bianca-Olivia Nita, MODERN TIMES


At some point, maybe a quarter way into the film, you may find yourself asking: what is this all about? But stick with it and you’ll realise this question is an irrelevance. Because you’re about to be sucked in deep into this irrestible, colourful, rough, loving, and sometimes scary world of Cabaret Travesía Travesti.



– Nicole Santé, BUSINESS DOC EUROPE


Nicolás Videla, besides directing, writing, co-producing, editing, and filming this movie, the simple fact that they are also part of the Travesty Odyssey Cabaret—as Amnesia Letal—makes this audiovisual work a kind of extension of their performance, reinforcing the narrative inquiry that intersects both the collective and the country: to find the best way to canalize clashes and yearnings.

” 

– Nicolás J. Vogt, BITÁCORA DE CINE

Nicolás Videla unveils a difficult landscape to represent, through their framing, in the most relevant political crisis in Chile of the last 30 years.


– Juan Pablo Sutherland, NACIÓN MARICA


The film has a lot of power by making a difficult job through collage, edition and pantyhose all together. Pantyhose are complex threads, full of meeting points, and these threads create unity. But, at the same time, they are potentially very fragile and can tear when handled without care. If they tear, it’s impossible to hide it. The editing of the film doesn’t make just collages or mixtures, but rather creates a new framework of meeting points, a new system, open, not closed, a unique pantyhose-narrative that makes a lot of sense as a unit and as a process.



– Angélica Cabezas-Pino, Investigadora y Cineasta