El mocito | The Young Butler
Directors: Marcela Said, Jean de Certeau
Chile 2011
Spanish
Forum

A man alone, living in a lonely cabin in the hills. We learn he was an unwilling participant at DINA extermination center. A 14-year-old boy who wasn’t allowed to finish primary education.

“Since I have grown, I have realized this was wrong.”

He demonstrates his duties in detail in an empty detention center. Bringing coffee during torture sessions. He describes the slow death of a pregnant woman.

From the directors:

Our purpose in making this film is to get to know the “monster,” to confront my own fears, and those of a whole society. To get to know the “monster,” not in order to judge him but to try to understand. To get to know his surroundings, his family, his daily life. To tell his story from the present, the banal. I hope to help people to reflect on these complex realities.

El mocito is a powerful first feature-length documentary from Marcela Said and Jean de Certeau.

Read the Forum essay.