Assent

When the military took control of Chile in the coup of September 1973, it was the culmination of Cold War tensions, international political influence and internal conflict. For Army personnel, it was an event that marked their lives. In the immediate aftermath of the coup a ‘Caravan of Death’ roamed the country conducting executions of military detainees. This was a mechanism to install terror into the community and a way to demonstrate the force of the central authorities to military staff outside the capital, and, in making them complicit in the actions of the junta, to ensure their loyalty. Thirty years later, the repercussions of those events still play out daily – in courts, in politics, and in the homes of Chilean people. This autobiographical immersive documentary puts the user in the footsteps of my father, who in 1973 was a 21-year-old army officer stationed in the north of Chile, on the day when the Caravan of Death came to his regiment. Assent invites the user to witness that day through my father’s eyes, and mine.