Based on a short tale by Pedro Lemebel, one of the most daring Chilean writers, Blokes tells the story of Luchito, a 13 year old boy growing up in the Chilean dictatorship of the 80s. Seduced by his powerful style, Rivas fell in love with Lemebel: "At the beginning, the possibility of making the film arrived just by chance. A group of producers offer me to work on a feature film based upon three short tales published in a Chilean magazine. When I read the tales, Lemebel’s chronicles immediately captured my attention. It was love at first sight”.

Although the original project could not continue, Rivas did not give up the idea. That was when Bolivian screenwriter and director Rodrigo Bellott (Sexual Dependency, Perfidy) appeared. "It was the first time I adapted a literary text for another director. I wanted to keep Lemebel’s voice and translate into the film language the thousands of details of the short tale”. There were no doubts for Marialy: the filmmakers met in New York ten years ago and the affinities in their passion for cinema were always strong. “When I confronted the challenge of converting a short tale as powerful as ‘Blokes’ into a script, I knew immediately that Rodrigo was the right person to carry out this task”.

The representation in such a difficult context as Latin American dictatorships and the fact of having a story full of children characters, gave the production a lot of new challenges. The biggest one for Rivas was “finding the protagonist, a child who could interpret the complex and subtle character Pedro Lemebel had created” With luck, the production team lead by Pablo Larraín (Tony Manero’s director) found the talented Alfonso David (14), who gave the character different dimensions and a lot of twists and turns.

The construction of Luchito and other characters demanded the screenwriter Rodrigo Bellott an intensive investigation on Lemebel’s literature: “The plus is that his work is very visual and sensorial, and it focuses on the discovering and mise-en- scene of an identity”. In the story, Luchito becomes obsessed with his neighbor across the street, Manuel. The sexual awakening of Luchito given the political and social context in which the story takes place will bring disastrous consequences for the life of one of them. Rivas is not afraid to say that "in moments of historical violence and repression, we are all victims of horror".

Blokes is one of the four Latin American short films in competition in Cannes Courts section. This situation invites to look into the present of films industries and the up and coming creativities in the continent. To Rodrigo Bellott, who has been working for several years in film productions outside Bolivia, in collaboration with directors such as the Peruvian Javier Fuentes-León (Undertow) and the Spanish Iciar Bollain, the paradigms have changed: "There is a lot of dialogue in our cinema. Borders fell: what matters now is to tell stories". In this regard, Marialy Rivas rescues the importance it has gained in Latin American cinema the opportunity to share the story of a continent with the world and open the film production as a place of encounter with ourselves: “I am proud to be part of this moment. It is an honor to watch us and find us, and finally realized the importance of our stories. To see how we are using very few budgets and translating them into a particular language is the most important way we have found to spread our difference”.

Mary Carmen Molina Ergueta