Chile’s Los Bunkers, one of Latin America’s most admired rock bands, has signed the soundtrack to ‘The Last Witness’ (‘El Ultimo Testigo’), a documentary portrait of Luis Poirot, a Chilean photographer who captured many important events and figures from the country’s history, from Salvador Allende to the estallido eruption of social protests in 2019 and beyond.
Some of Poirot’s earliest photographs, all in black and white, capture Allende during his successful presidential campaign in 1959. Poirot appointed the official photographer. He made illegal recordings of the presidential Palacio de la Moneda in Chile, days after Allende was killed there in a military coup, with the windows stripped by Chilean air force shelling. He also photographed Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda at his house on the beach of Isla Negra.
Directed by Catalan documentary journalist Francesc Relea (“Serrat y Sabina: el símbolo y el cuate”), “The Last Witness” films Poirot as bestselling author Isabel Allende (“The House of Spirits”) and director Pablo Larrain (“Spencer,” “El Conde”) who holds a camera to take photos of Poirot, actor-theater director Alfredo Castro and Catalan singer-composer Joan Manuel Serrat, with the voice-over recording their comments about Poirot.
On the fiftieth anniversary of the 1973 coup, images from Poirot’s photographs of the bombed Casa de la Moneda were eerily projected onto the restored facade. Poirot is there and his response: he takes a photo.
Chilean cinema has struggled for decades to portray the legacy of Augusto Pinochet’s 1973-1989 dictatorship and to make efforts to preserve Chile’s historical memory.
“I’m obsessed with memory, that we shouldn’t forget things. That’s why I became a photographer,” says Poirot.
In ‘The Last Witness’ Poirot opens his heart and, for the first time, his unpublished photo archive.
Poirot and, indeed, Los Bunkers – caught in the documentary performing the rock anthem “Miño” at the Estallido – are linked to Victor Jara, the hugely influential protest singer who was arrested, tortured and executed by Pinochet’s security forces.
Poirot was a friend, the photos showed Jara laughing in a park. Los Bunkers have sung his songs. “No death is justified, but Victor’s is something I will not forget or forgive,” Poirot tells Isabel Allende.
In the final editing phase before entering post-production, “The Last Witness” is produced by Chile’s Villano and Spain’s What’s Up Doc, founded by Relea, which co-financed the feature film, partly through crowdfunding. Juan Pablo Sallato, Ismael Larraín, Juan Ignacio Sabatini and Isabel Jubert produce.
“’The Last Witness’ is an overview of the trajectory of a symbol of Chilean and Latin American photography and a tribute to a style of work. As a journalist, I met Luis Poirot in the 1990s, and we worked together on several projects,” Relea said. Variety. “As a director, I want to show the story of a great photographer who witnessed on the front lines some of the most important events of the last fifty years, both in Chile and Spain,” he added.
Launched in 2009, Villano produces TV series (celebrated procedural “The Hunt”), films (“Kill Pinochet”) and documentary films.
“I believe our passion for making films and series is driven by a deep desire to tell compelling stories that leave a lasting impact,” said Villano producer Sallato. Variety.
