The Prison on Stage: Contrasting Memories of Imprisonment through two Chilean Documentaries and their Social Trajectories. 1985 Valparaíso Cárcel Pública and Arcana

Abstract

Valparaíso’s former prison, which was decommissioned in 1999, occupied since then as a cultural space and transformed into a major cultural facility called Parque Cultural de Valparaiso in 2011, constitutes the melting pot of diverse social memories. This article studies the memories of the former prison in the light of the documentary gaze developed by two Chilean films, 1985 Valparaíso Cárcel Pública (Andrés Brignardello and José Acevedo, 2005) and Arcana (Cristóbal Vicente, 2006), which focuses respectively on political detention and common-law convict’s worlds. Further, the article explores how the circulation of films participates in the production of prison’s memories that are contrasting but intertwined. Thus, this work proposes a cross-reading of memories constitution processes and film’s symbolic value construction.