Chile’s ‘Erratics,’ Blending Denis Lavant, Speculative Fiction and Ghost Cinema, Bows at San Sebastián New Directors Competition

Blending speculative fiction, ghost cinema and Patagonian hauntology, Chilean Thomas Woodroffe’s debut feature “Erratics” (“Bloques erráticos”) holds its world premiere at the San Sebastian Festival’s New Directors sidebar. It tracks the ghost of French filmmaker Lucien Castelnau who wakes up in the stunning landscapes of Patagonia where he has spent a century trapped inside a […] Chilean Thomas Woodroffe’s debut feature ‘Erratics’ holds its world premiere at San Sebastian’s New Directors scompetition. Blending speculative fiction, ghost cinema and Patagonian hauntology, Chilean Thomas Woodroffe’s debut feature “Erratics” (“Bloques erráticos”) holds its world premiere at the San Sebastian Festival’s New Directors sidebar.

It tracks the ghost of French filmmaker Lucien Castelnau who wakes up in the stunning landscapes of Patagonia where he has spent a century trapped inside a glacier. “As he wanders through a technological society built upon the remnants of forgotten histories, he encounters traces of indigenous memory, displaced communities and visions of a world that no longer resembles the one he left behind,” the synopsis goes, exploring “what becomes of images, memories and artworks that fail to find their audience…. can a film truly exist if it is never seen?” “Like an erratic boulder carried by ice and abandoned in a