Projects
The Meltdown
Winter ‘92. While her parents are away, Inés loses her childhood when her skier friend Hanna disappears.
Chile, winter 1992. Inés (10) is in the care of her grandparents, owners of a ski hotel in the Andes Mountains. Her parents are away; they are in charge of mounting an iceberg at Sevilla’s Universal Exposition. Inés befriends Hanna (15); a talented German skier who has come to train with her team, staying at the hotel. Despite the age difference, a peculiar connection unites them, and the new friends roam the surroundings together. One nigh, Hanna has a few drinks and dances with Sebastián (17), Inés’ cousin, at the hotel club. Her coach, Alexander (36), drags her back to her room, but Sebastián sneaks in. Inés observes them walking away through the woods. The next day Hanna disappears. After a negligent search by the local police, the parents arrive. In total desperation, Lina (46), Hanna’s mother, meets Inés, who becomes her guide. As the days go by, Inés and Lina tacitly agree to fill the void of the other: a missing daughter, an absent mother.
The Meltdown emerged from two childhood memories: the winter vacation I spent in a relatives’ ski hotel, far from my parents, where we children roamed freely in the rear area. Around the same period, Chile exhibited an iceberg at the World’s Fair in Seville ‘92. The iceberg displacement was the heroic feat of a country that was rising from dictatorship and opening up to international trade. These memories share key elements: the idea of transition and the interplay between what is visible and hidden. Both the hotel and the exhibition perform on these levels: one visible, the other concealed. The Chilean transition to democracy is the backdrop for Inés’ loss of innocence, tied to her friend’s disappearance. During the restoration of democracy, many agreed to “leave in the past what belonged to the past”. But the past was such a deadly horrific period. The Meltdown is an attempt to understand our historical inheritance gazing through the eyes of a girl in the “far west” of the Andes.
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