The Vancouver Latin American Film Festival presents a special screening of the Chilean film BAD INFLUENCE (MALA JUNTA) by director Claudia Huaiquimilla, in partnership with the Liu Institute for Global Issues at UBC.

There will be a reception before the screening with wine & beer by donation and snacks. The screening will be followed by a Q&A facilitated by members of the Network of Chilean Researchers in Canada – REDICEC.

Using as a backdrop the ongoing conflict between Chile’s Indigenous Mapuche communities and the corporate forces who want to strip them of their lands, Mapuche director Claudia Huaiquimilla’s gripping first feature film focuses on the burgeoning friendship between two teenagers. After the rebellious Tano is arrested for his participation in a gas station robbery, he is sent from the city of Santiago to live with his estranged father in the remote mountain community of Wallmapu. There he meets Cheo, a shy Mapuche boy, who is being bullied at school. Though friendship between these two very different youths seems unlikely, the complications and violence of the world around them bonds them in unexpected and transformative ways.

“Huaiquimilla brilliantly weaves together themes both grand and intimate—a rich human tapestry played against an urgent social and environmental crisis.” Seattle International Film Festival

Winner of the Audience Award at the 2017 Toulouse Cinélatino Film Festival.

In Mapudungun and Spanish with English subtitles.