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A black and white image. Illimunated by a single bright light, a man sits in front of a ham radio.

Alien Island Isla Alien

  Cristóbal Valenzuela

  Chile, Italy     87 minutes

Synopsis

Chile, 1984. As a wave of UFO sightings — and a military dictatorship — sweep the country, a group of short-wave radio operators receive mysterious communications from a nearby island. Through the crackling voices, they learn that a highly developed extraterrestrial race has taken residence on Friendship Island and is offering the listeners the promise of a better world.

Mixing shimmering, Twilight Zone-esque black-and-white sci-fi reenactments with lucid archival footage, this stranger-than-fiction story of supernatural intrigue follows both the citizens swept up in the mystery and Ernesto de La Fuente, the enigmatic man at its center. Uniquely stylized, utterly fascinating, and sharply witty, Alien Island goes beyond a tale of close encounters to reveal a far more insidious story of lies, accountability, and political oppression.

 Spanish with subtitles 

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Film Credits

  •   Diego Breit Lira
  •   Cristóbal Valenzuela, Juan Eduardo Murillo
  •   Juan Eduardo Murillo
  •   Matías Illane
  •   Ernesto de la Fuente
  •   Jorge Cabargas
  •   Diego Breit Lira
  •   Glaciar Films, Tico Film Company
  •   https://www.islaalien.com

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Logo: WTTW (2019)Cynthia Stone Raskin