Niles Atallah

Directing

Niles Atallah

California, USA

Niles Atallah lives and works in Santiago, Chile. Born in California in 1978, he is a dual citizen of both Chile and the U.S. He has a B.A. in Art from the University of California at Santa Cruz. Niles works as a writer and director in feature film, music videos, video art work, installations and short films. He also works as a director of photography and created Diluvio, a film production company in Chile. His first feature Lucía premiered at San Sebastián in 2010. Lucía was awarded the FIPRESCI Critics Prize, Prix Découverte de la Critique Française and Prix Spécial du Jury in Toulouse and Best Director at the Valdivia International Film Festival in Chile. Lucia, Luis y el Lobo, a series of two short films he co-directed with Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña, totaled over 1 million online views.

Acting credits

Behind the camera

The Wolf House poster
7.5

After escaping from a religious colony in Chile, Maria seeks shelter in a mansion where she’s taken in by two pigs, its only inhabitants. Like in a stop-motion dream, the universe of the house reacts to her feelings. The animals slowly morph into humans and the house into a dark, menacing world.

The Wolf House

2018

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

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

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

Animalia Paradoxa poster
6.0

The list of fantastic, mythical animals compiled by Carl Linnaeus in his seminal 18th century work Systema Naturae could well be the seed of Niles Atallah’s Animalia Paradoxa – an eccentric tale set in a post-apocalyptic world that follows a strange creature struggling to survive. Dressed in rags and a gas mask, moving like an alien dancer, Animalia roams through an abandoned building – crawling and stretching across concrete, plastic, waste. She laboriously carries and fills up an array of empty bottles to enjoy a modest bath. The camera eye lingers on her with compassion and explores the architectures of trash at an agonising pace. We know in our hearts that Animalia is a human-amphibian longing for the sea…

Animalia Paradoxa

2024

Animalia Paradoxa poster
6.0

The list of fantastic, mythical animals compiled by Carl Linnaeus in his seminal 18th century work Systema Naturae could well be the seed of Niles Atallah’s Animalia Paradoxa – an eccentric tale set in a post-apocalyptic world that follows a strange creature struggling to survive. Dressed in rags and a gas mask, moving like an alien dancer, Animalia roams through an abandoned building – crawling and stretching across concrete, plastic, waste. She laboriously carries and fills up an array of empty bottles to enjoy a modest bath. The camera eye lingers on her with compassion and explores the architectures of trash at an agonising pace. We know in our hearts that Animalia is a human-amphibian longing for the sea…

Animalia Paradoxa

2024

Merrimundi poster
5.0

A twisted utopia unfolds, as singing cherubs melt to the sound of decay. Crafted by a sentient machine from the future, it unveils its own version of paradise.

Merrimundi

2025

Merrimundi poster
5.0

A twisted utopia unfolds, as singing cherubs melt to the sound of decay. Crafted by a sentient machine from the future, it unveils its own version of paradise.

Merrimundi

2025

Vitanuova poster
NR

An enigmatic figure, half-goddess, half-child, combining the smoothness of a doll and the materiality of clay, will be our guide as we cross time and space, and our history. - N. Feodoroff

Vitanuova

2023

Luis poster
7.2

Luis talks about his life in the forest and how he fell in love with Lucía.

Luis

2008

Luis poster
7.2

Luis talks about his life in the forest and how he fell in love with Lucía.

Luis

2008

No artwork available
NR

42 short films independent of each other, linked only through the concept of dream, as each author decided to decipher that concept. Fragmentum Cinema: Dreams, is an overview and anthology of the work of various Latin American authors.

Fragmentum Cinema: Dreams

2019

Nocturno de Chile poster
NR

"Nocturno de Chile" is composed of two videos: "La Cacería" ("The Hunt") and "La Cena" ("The Dinner"). Both videos are adaptations of Roberto Bolaño’s novel by the same title. The videos are meant to be viewed side by side, each video representing an adjacent room. In one room we find a dinner of intellectuals and writers; and in the neighboring room a torture is taking place.

Nocturno de Chile

2007

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

The Fire Doll

Burial: Subterranean Light poster
NR

Several reels of film are buried in a forest in sourthern Chile. Ten years later the films are unearthed from the soil and projected. Ghosts have appeared on the surface of the decaying celulloid, they are the protagonists of Niles Atallah's earlier feature films "Lucia" and "Rey". The fictional characters have returned to haunt the images, peering through the layers of earth, as if interested in us, the spectators who watch them. Who is looking at who? Why have these characters returned? What do they want? The film is a secret code written by the earth itself.

Burial: Subterranean Light

2022

Rey poster
4.4

In the nineteenth century, a French adventurer sets off to establish a kingdom in the inhospitable South of Chile, uniting the feared Mapuche under him. The response of the Chilean army is devastating.

Rey

2017

Rey poster
4.4

In the nineteenth century, a French adventurer sets off to establish a kingdom in the inhospitable South of Chile, uniting the feared Mapuche under him. The response of the Chilean army is devastating.

Rey

2017

Archivos del estallido poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Archivos del estallido

2019

Lucía poster
7.5

Lucía remembers the summer when she fell in love with Luis and her fear of the dark.

Lucía

2007

Lucía poster
7.5

Lucía remembers the summer when she fell in love with Luis and her fear of the dark.

Lucía

2007