“Beginning and End” is an emblematic mural of the national pictorial heritage. It was created by the prominent painter Julio Escámez in the Municipality of Chillán in 1972 and censored after the coup d’état.
It was believed that the work had been removed in its entirety. However, thanks to the architect Carlos Inostroza, the Escámez Foundation and the Heritage Unit of the Municipality of Chillán, in 2021 vestiges of the work were discovered, which still remains under several layers of paint.
Inspired by this discovery, in 2023 Christian Díaz Pardo, great-nephew of Julio Escámez, created a short documentary film that was selected in the call “Carmen Bueno and Jorge Muller | Short Film Contest 50 Years”, of the Museum of Memory. From there, the idea of making a feature-length documentary arose.
“Through the life and work of Julio Escámez, we will reflect on topics such as artistic creation, exile, family, theater, our recent history, our memory,” says Díaz Pardo. “Mixing personal and family memories, archival material and images recorded by us, we will reconstruct the story of Julio, of my family, of an entire golden age of culture in Chile,” adds the director.
In order to finance the research and filming of part of the work, the director raises funds through a crowdfunding campaign in order to complete the film by 2025. You can obtain details of the campaign and collaborate at this link.
Julio Escamez
Julio Escámez was a prominent Chilean painter, muralist, printmaker and teacher. The owner of a privileged technique and enthusiast of pre-Columbian cultures, he dedicated himself to traveling through Peru and Bolivia and much of the world. Some of his training centers were prestigious art schools in Italy, Germany, Austria, and the former Soviet Union.
“I think that the artist in general, and those of us who cultivate this craft of creating images in particular, need a broad conception of the world,” Escámez said in an interview.
The military coup in Chile in 1973 would mark his life and also his artistic work. Since then the message of his works would be more human than ever. Some biographers place his abundant production in the current of realism, with a marked social content.
Much of his artistic legacy is in Costa Rica, which would be his home since 1973, after exile.
