Shedding tears for Meeting Point @Hot Docs 2022

Getting over grief, loss and trauma may cause you to revisit those times even if it brings you tears. Valuable lessons are taught to be a reminder of how traumatic that event or period of time was. We do this in order to refrain from history ever repeating itself. But sometimes we do this because we want closure which sometimes we never really get. Especially when blood becomes part of the picture, there will be many shedding tears afterwards.

A History of Violence

Director Robert Baeza‘s documentary Meeting Point (Punto de Encuentro) revisits two families’ traumatic and connected past. Having its Canadian premiere at Hot Docs Festival, the documentary follows filmmakers Alfredo Garcia and Paulina Costa. They reconstruct a time where Chilean dictator Pinochet was in power and put it on film. It is to focus on their fathers Lucho and Alfredo who formed a friendship in a torture centre in Villa Grimaldi. Only Paulina’s father came out alive while Alfredo went missing. 50 years later the pain is still felt throughout this family immensely.

Meeting Point is set against a backdrop of the recent Chilean social movement against the Chilean state. Which is still oppressing their people, violating human rights through violence. Similar to when Lucho and Alfredo were incarcerated and tortured by the military coup 45 years ago, history is repeating itself in the country of Chile. These painful memories are transmitted for generations providing lessons about equality, freedom and most of all family.

Director Robert Baeza says,

Family Loss

Members of both Alfredo’s and Paulina’s families get into the act of developing this film. Paulina’s father Lucho gives much feedback about his story and the friendship that he developed with Alfredo. He especially weighs in on the horrors and severity of Villa Grimaldi and how small of a space he had to share with his fellow prisoners.

Alfredo’s mother Silvia tells her stories of how she fell in love with her husband and had a child. She helps out in the casting process of her younger husband, played by Pablo Medina. Silvia is put to tears because sometimes she thinks it’s actually her late husband because they look alike. Also, when they are recreating a scene where Silvia and Alfredo are carrying a baby around is a tear jerker. This is how much pain and grief this event has inflicted through time.

The question throughout Meeting Point is if the filmmaking process would bring healing to the family. There is so much grief expressed at different points in the film you wonder if they even had to time to heal over the years. From talking about the incarceration at Villa Grimaldi to its reenactment from the young actors is heartbreaking. The trickle-down effect of the Pinochet dictatorship and how the pain inflicted on these families never settles or goes away.

The Road Less Travelled

Meeting Point hits home because it reminds us when of our parents. Especially, when they always say that we will never know what they went through. To get where they are today, some may have taken the road less travelled. Many of them took a road where it wasn’t their choice and had to pivot oppression let alone violence. The documentary reminds us how grateful we should be to our parents. And that we should hold them tighter as long as they are around. Everyone’s parent has a different story but it is their courage and persistence that brought you here.

We’re loving it here on FERNTV all these intimate and up-close personal documentaries about family such as Meeting Point. It’s so important to document the value of family, especially after going through a pandemic. We need these stories now more than ever. Even in the film when they are recreating a scene where Silvia and Alfredo are carrying a baby around is a tear jerker.

Meeting Point is a hidden gem during this year’s Hot Docs Festival because of its courage to evoke emotions about our families. There is no perfection when it comes to family. But some do work harder than others on it. If you don’t shed tears then you ain’t working hard enough.