José Luis Torres Leiva

Directing

José Luis Torres Leiva

Born 1975-01-01 · Chile

José Luis Torres Leiva (born 1975, Chile) is a film director, editor, and screenwriter. He has made a considerable number of short films and independent videos. The Sky, the Earth and the Rain (2008) was his first feature film. Supported by the Hubert Bals Fund (HBF), it was nominated for a Tiger Award and won the FIPRESCI Award at IFFR in 2008. Summertime has also been supported by the HBF and had its premiere at the Venice film festival in 2011.

Acting credits

Behind the camera

No artwork available
NR

A film of people who daydream. A special dream that marked something in their lives, either because it was premonitory or prophetic, because it took them to a lost or forgotten place of their childhood or because he faced them with a fear that they believed to be insurmountable.

Los soñadores

2016

11 Habitaciones en Antártica poster
NR

Leo Quinteros music is the base to this film in which filmmakers, actors and actresses and other creators reunite in different hotel rooms.

11 Habitaciones en Antártica

2013

No artwork available
10.0

No Place in Anywhere can deal with many issues. It is a personal journey through image and time. It is the portrait of the "La Matriz" neighborhood in Valparaíso. It is the encounter between reality and fiction. It is the constant search to find a truth within the documentary. It is a musical rehearsal. It is the constant preparation of a documentary. It is a documentary of questions more than answers. A silent face, an empty road, a winter landscape, the wind moving the leaves of a tree, a wall, the sea, the street of a neighborhood, all of them intend to "create through the record" a unique truth for each viewer.

No Place in Anywhere

2003

No artwork available
10.0

No Place in Anywhere can deal with many issues. It is a personal journey through image and time. It is the portrait of the "La Matriz" neighborhood in Valparaíso. It is the encounter between reality and fiction. It is the constant search to find a truth within the documentary. It is a musical rehearsal. It is the constant preparation of a documentary. It is a documentary of questions more than answers. A silent face, an empty road, a winter landscape, the wind moving the leaves of a tree, a wall, the sea, the street of a neighborhood, all of them intend to "create through the record" a unique truth for each viewer.

No Place in Anywhere

2003

No artwork available
10.0

No Place in Anywhere can deal with many issues. It is a personal journey through image and time. It is the portrait of the "La Matriz" neighborhood in Valparaíso. It is the encounter between reality and fiction. It is the constant search to find a truth within the documentary. It is a musical rehearsal. It is the constant preparation of a documentary. It is a documentary of questions more than answers. A silent face, an empty road, a winter landscape, the wind moving the leaves of a tree, a wall, the sea, the street of a neighborhood, all of them intend to "create through the record" a unique truth for each viewer.

No Place in Anywhere

2003

El mal poster
NR

The clouds over a couple give rise to a story about the small everyday gestures of a world that stops around the disturbing spaces of everyday life.

El mal

2004

Lucia poster
6.2

Lucía is a young woman who works as a seamstress in a factory and lives with her father in an old house in Santiago, Chile. The film occurs in December 2006 during the weeks that take place from the ex-dictator Pinochet’s funeral to Christmas Eve. Through the simple observation of Lucía’s daily life, the spectator is allowed access into a hidden and neglected world of a generation of Chileans striving to recover from the military dictatorship.

Lucia

2011

No artwork available
NR

Ten segments linked to a primary idea: an evocation of the early cinema images.

Trance

2008

No artwork available
NR

Ten segments linked to a primary idea: an evocation of the early cinema images.

Trance

2008

No artwork available
NR

Ten segments linked to a primary idea: an evocation of the early cinema images.

Trance

2008

No artwork available
6.4

An atmospheric portrait of four women who leave the factory where they work to go to the beach.

Women Workers Leaving the Factory

2005

No artwork available
6.4

An atmospheric portrait of four women who leave the factory where they work to go to the beach.

Women Workers Leaving the Factory

2005

Adios amigo mío, sin gestos, sin palabras poster
NR

The title comes from Sergei Yesenin's last poem before comiting suicide. Using Virginia Woolf's last letters as a base, this film is meditation on the power of the word and its undertsanding and the the last moments before saying "goodbye".

Adios amigo mío, sin gestos, sin palabras

2015

Adios amigo mío, sin gestos, sin palabras poster
NR

The title comes from Sergei Yesenin's last poem before comiting suicide. Using Virginia Woolf's last letters as a base, this film is meditation on the power of the word and its undertsanding and the the last moments before saying "goodbye".

Adios amigo mío, sin gestos, sin palabras

2015

No artwork available
NR

Stark formal choices counterbalance profound emotions and vulnerability in this poignant lover’s goodbye.

Ana's Dream

2017

No artwork available
NR

Stark formal choices counterbalance profound emotions and vulnerability in this poignant lover’s goodbye.

Ana's Dream

2017

No artwork available
NR

Experimental film about form and sound, with music by Steven R. Smith.

Intermediate

About Things That Happened to Me poster
NR

Based on the book by author Marcelo Matthey, this short film narrates his own life in a style reminiscent of school compositions. His constant strolls through streets, houses and beaches are recorded in notes of what he saw, felt or thought during these wanderings or moments, but almost only recalling the processes, the timeline in which things occur and come to mind, the trail of associations coming one after the other, like the steps of a person walking along a street. Immediate impressions, fleeting moments normally lost in time and which are captured in the images and sounds of this film.

About Things That Happened to Me

2018

About Things That Happened to Me poster
NR

Based on the book by author Marcelo Matthey, this short film narrates his own life in a style reminiscent of school compositions. His constant strolls through streets, houses and beaches are recorded in notes of what he saw, felt or thought during these wanderings or moments, but almost only recalling the processes, the timeline in which things occur and come to mind, the trail of associations coming one after the other, like the steps of a person walking along a street. Immediate impressions, fleeting moments normally lost in time and which are captured in the images and sounds of this film.

About Things That Happened to Me

2018

When Clouds Hide the Shadow poster
7.5

Maria travels to Puerto Williams to star in a movie. But the film crew won't be able to arrive due to a strong storm. Alone, she'll seek help for severe back pain, which will lead her to discover life in the southernmost city in the world and a pending story in her life.

When Clouds Hide the Shadow

2025

When Clouds Hide the Shadow poster
7.5

Maria travels to Puerto Williams to star in a movie. But the film crew won't be able to arrive due to a strong storm. Alone, she'll seek help for severe back pain, which will lead her to discover life in the southernmost city in the world and a pending story in her life.

When Clouds Hide the Shadow

2025

No artwork available
NR

Initially the film is part of the project "8,8" by Chilean artist Fernando Prats. Recorded for 8 days in the area most affected by the February 2010 earthquake in Chile, it narrates a journey that subjectively crosses all the images and sounds experienced during that period.

Three Weeks Later

2010

Verano poster
4.3

During one hot summer day, little things happen to the visitors and workers of an old thermal resort in southern Chile. Julieta, Francisco, Isa, Rodrigo, Ignacio, Mariana, Muriel, Gabriela, Eliseo, Norma, Alejandra and Claudio experience the long vacation hours in nature, sleeping in the sun, learning how to drive, cleaning the house, kissing for the first time, swimming at night or just walking and talking, while the day slowly unravels into small fragments of happiness and discovery.

Verano

2011

Verano poster
4.3

During one hot summer day, little things happen to the visitors and workers of an old thermal resort in southern Chile. Julieta, Francisco, Isa, Rodrigo, Ignacio, Mariana, Muriel, Gabriela, Eliseo, Norma, Alejandra and Claudio experience the long vacation hours in nature, sleeping in the sun, learning how to drive, cleaning the house, kissing for the first time, swimming at night or just walking and talking, while the day slowly unravels into small fragments of happiness and discovery.

Verano

2011