There is something deeply refreshing – and necessary – in finding a Chilean film that is not afraid to play with genres, to leave the costumbrismo, open to new narrative languages without losing identity. That is exactly what it achieves Bitter goldthe new feature film directed by Juan Francisco Olea, which opens this May 8 and, honestly, deserves to be seen on a large screen.
Shot in the heart of the Atacama desert, Bitter gold Not only does it feel like a rarity within our national billboard; It feels like a step forward. With modern Western dyes, thriller atmosphere and a script that is not afraid to show the grays of its characters, this Chilean film arrives to rumble, entertain and let out.
A cattle story from minute one
The synopsis already suggests the tension level that the story manages: a pirquinero (Francisco Melo) and his teenage daughter (Kat Sánchez) find an illegal gold vein that could change their lives. But the finding soon becoming a nightmare: a miner discovers the secret, violently bursts into the mine and everything gets out of control. With his father seriously injured and a body to hide, Carola, the daughter, must take command and face the consequences alone.
It is a script that does not respond, that advances with sustained rhythm and that avoids falling into common places. What starts as a family drama quickly mutates in a Emotional and Physical Survival Thrillerwhere ambition, fear and filial love intersect in dangerous terrain, both literally and symbolically.
And this is where one of his great strengths is: History Catch you without artificeit does not need large effects or forced turns. There is suspense, of course, but also a solid construction construction, with layers that are revealed as the tension progresses.
Kat Sánchez: A powerful revelation
Who steals the screen is Kat to the In Carola’s role. The actress, whom we had already seen in Sayéndelivers a vibrant, vulnerable and fierce interpretation. Carola is not the typical hero: he is a teenager who has no choice but to make adult to force, who deal with pain, guilt, fear and the urgent need to survive.
Sanchez manages to transmit all that whirlwind with a shocking naturalness. There is a truth in her gaze, in her tense body, in her broken voice that makes her accompany her with the heart in her hand. His emotional journey is the heart of the movie.
For its part, Francisco Melo It demonstrates, once again, why it is one of the most versatile actors in Chilean cinema and television. In the role of Pacific, a rude, dry, but deeply loving man, delivers a contained, moving action, far away from the luminous roles that he usually interprets. In addition, it opens as an executive producer of a film fiction, which demonstrates its commitment to the project from all fronts.
A staging that bothers (and that’s good)
But Bitter gold It would not be the same without his Powerful visual proposal. Filmed in Copiapó, in full desert of Atacama, the film uses its location as one more character. Heat, dust, landscape aridity are not only seen, they feel. There is an intelligent use of closed planes inside the mine, which accentuate the danger, in contrast to open plans of the desert, which far from meaning freedom, evoke isolation and despair.
Juan Olea’s direction feels safe, precise, intimate. There are no grandiloquent resources, but a camera attentive to emotional details. The tension is constructed little by little, like a thread that is tense and you do not know when it will break. The suspense is constant, but never free.
Written by an international team led by Francisco Hervé, Moisés Sepúlveda and Agustín Toscano, the script of Bitter gold It combines the pulse of the thriller with a deeper reflection on the limits of ambition, emotional inheritance and structural violence that lives in places such as mining tasks.
Carola and Pacific not only fight for gold. They fight not to get lost, to hold a link, to build a possibility of the future. It is a story of dreams, errors, survival. And above all, of love in extreme conditions.
In a panorama where Chilean cinema many times is comfortable in certain formulas, Bitter gold It comes like A different bet: visual, sensory, gender, but with heart. It is one of those films that are worth watching in Sala, feeling it with the body, being dragged by its rhythm, for its tension, for its silences loaded with meaning. It is also a work that invites national production to look with other eyes: other stories can be told, other formats can be explored, gender cinema can be made without giving up local identity.
Is it worth seeing it?
Absolutely yes. Bitter gold It is one of those films that keep you alert, which are excited without a low blow, that make you think. It is intense, visually attractive, with high -level performances and a script that does not underestimate your audience. And most importantly: It is Chilean cinema that risks, and when that happens, it deserves all our support.
So you already know: from this May 8give yourself the opportunity to watch a movie that does not resemble any other. Enter the mine, face heat, suspense, gold and bitterness … and let yourself surprise.
- Títutulu Original: Bitter gold
- Director: Juan Francisco Olea
- Country: Chile, Germany, Uruguay, Mexico
- Year: 2004
- Gender: Drama, Thriller
- Duración: 83 minutes
- Con: Katalina Sánchez, Francisco Melo, Michael Silva, Daniel Antivilo, Moisés Angulo, Carlos Donoso, Carla Moscatelli, Matias Catalán, Carlos Rodríguez, Anibal Vásquez
- Script: Francisco Hervé, Moisé Sepúllveda, Toscano, Malu Furche, Nicolas Wellmann
- Music: Sofia Scheps
- Production: Francisco Hervé, Moses Sepúlveda, Daniela Raviola, Felipe Egaña, Virginia Boglioolo, Tom Schreiber, Arturo Pereyra, Juan Bernardo González.
- Premiere date: May 8, 2025
- Distributor: Cinecolor Chile
