Coming from the Chilean and Latin American New Wave Cinema movements of the 1960s, Raúl Ruiz devoted his entire life to creating and reflecting on the seventh art, making a total 120 films, initially still in Chile, and then in France, where he went into exile after the 1973 coup d’état, against the democracy of Salvator Allende.
From his first feature, Three Sad Tigers (1968), Golden Leopard in Locarno, to his last two, the multi-prized Mysteries of Lisbon (2010) and the posthumous one La Noche de Enfrente / La Nuit d’en Face / Night Across the Street (2012) [Lines of Wellington (2012) was conceived by Ruiz, directed by Valeria Sarmiento], combining more experimental films with lavish literary adaptations, Raúl Ruiz developed a unique style, breaking the boundaries between documentary and fiction, faithful to a very personal “magical realism”, filled with humor and surrealistic outbursts.
