Songs of Repression

Synopsis

At the foot of the Andes Mountains in Chile you find an idyllic German colony. Here tourists come and enjoy the nature, the pool and traditional German cuisine.

However, the beauty of the place contains a grim past. In 1961, the German preacher Paul Schäfer and his congregation moved to Chile with the stated aim of helping the poor. They established Colonia Dignidad (Colony of Dignity), which transformed into a sect. This film explores how the residents of the colony deal with 45 years of child abuse, collective beatings, mass graves and slave like living conditions. Apart from the inhabitants’ miserable lives, the colony assisted Pinochet’s dictatorship (1973-1990) in torturing and killing political prisoners and burying them in mass graves on their 16.000-hectare land.

In 2007 Schäfer was arrested and the colony opened up. Today the colony has changed its name to Villa Baviera (Bavarian Village). Around 120 people are still living there. This film is about them now. We meet those who completely deny the horrors and wish to only remember the bright moments, those who still today go through severe emotional struggles – and those caught in between.

SONGS OF REPRESSION asks whether both truth and reconciliation are possible in a society where personal and collective denial is part of everyday life.

Production Facts

Duration: 90 min
Country of Origin: UK, Denmark,US
Language of dialogue: German, Spanish
Release: March 2020 at CPH:DOX