HOT DOCS

Primera

92 minutes directed by Vee Bravo

When the Chilean government tried to bring in a large transit fare hike back in 2019 ‘they knew not what they wrought’. Years of neoliberal oppression rooted in the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1974-90) set off a year-long mass revolt. Exiled Chilean director Vee Bravo jumped on a flight from New York to graphically document the rise of working class whose agitation reversed not only the fare increase but the entire constitutional edifice that General Pinochet (and his economic advisors from the University of Chicago) had installed to ensure the continuity of class oppression in is intense. Bravo embedded himself in a group of activists, known as Primera Línea or Front Line, which had the unenviable task of defending the broader movement, using everything from sling shots to Molotov cocktails to fend off police assaults. The film captures Anji, Camila, Felipe, and Male – pastry chef, street musician, welder and attorney – showing not only their bravery and streetwise intelligence but the price they pay in economic, physical and psychological pain for their activism.