Socialist Realism

Raúl Ruiz had just completed shooting for Socialist Realism in 1973 when Pinochet led a successful military coup in Chile. Ruiz had to flee the country and was never able to complete the edit for this hybrid docufiction film. Cameraman Jorge Müller Silva disappeared following the coup, and he remains missing to this day.

Film material was rediscovered in 2016 at Duke University in Durham, in the US, and some more in 2020 at the Cinematek Royal Film Archive of Belgium. Filmmaker-editor Valeria Sarmiento, Ruiz’s widow, managed to save this historic and fundamental piece of cinematic heritage by editing, reconstructing, restoring and completing the film, backed by production company Poetastros.

Socialist Realism is a political satire about Unidad Popular, the left-wing alliance led by socialist president Allende. In a series of short stories, two worlds within this alliance intersect: the world of the workers and the world of the well-educated left-wing supporters. The latter believe intellectuals should come down from their ivory towers, and that all Chileans should write poetry—although no one turns up to the poetry group. These two separate worlds ultimately clash violently in this sardonic report of a turbulent political climate.