Machuca

Machuca is a 2004 Chilean film written and directed by Andrés Wood. Set in 1973 Santiago during Salvador Allende's socialist government until shortly after General Augusto Pinochet's military coup in 1973, the film tells the story of two pupils: Gonzalo Infante comes from rich family with European background, while Pedro Machuca comes from an indigenous background and lives in very poor conditions. They meet at an elite, English-language Catholic school, where the director, Father McEnroe, is developing a social integration project. The film is dedicated to Father Gerardo Whelan, C.S.C. who from 1969 to 1973 was the director of Colegio Saint George (Saint George's College), the private school in Santiago that the film's director attended as a boy. The movie was filmed in July 2003 and produced on a moderate budget of 1,700,000 USD, which came from an international cooperation between Chile and Spain. Machuca performed well in theaters in Chile, but did not have notable box office success outside of Latin America.