Pedro Chaskel

Pedro Chaskel, is one of the main precursors of the so-called New Chilean Cinema, as a director, cameraman and editor of numerous short and feature length films. An early emigrant from Germany at the age of seven, Chaskel became a Chilean national in 1952, and studied architecture at the Universidad de Chile from 1951 to 1954. That year, he became a founding member and animator of the Cine Club Universitario de la Federación de Estudiantes de Chile (FECH). A conspirator in the exhibition of films that did not come to Chile through the regular commercial circuit, Chaskel promoted, together with a group of contemplative people, a custom that was not very common in Chile: the cinema forum, or the debate organized after the film screenings that he did at the Central House of the Universidad de Chile. It was there that classics of German expressionism, Italian neo-realism and any film they had available were shown for the first time in Chile. In 1973, due to the military coup suffered by...