Montecalvario

An Italian village at the end of the world, and the fragile peace it tries to keep.

High in the Andes, the village of Capitán Pastene, in Chile, celebrates its Italian roots with a yearly festival that re-enacts the arrival of the first settlers in the early twentieth century. On the floats, the Italian tricolour flies beside the Chilean and Mapuche flags.

Behind the official story of integration, deep cracks emerge: old tensions between the Italian community, the Chilean population and the Mapuche people, made worse by the unchecked spread of eucalyptus plantations that threaten the land and its resources. The film follows the difficult attempt at dialogue between the parties, in a country still searching for its identity between denied indigenous roots and Western heritage.