Valeria Sarmiento

Passionate romance, brutal treachery, and selfless nobility are set against the background of Napoleon’s 1810 invasion of Portugal.

The story of the adventures, in the twilight of the eighteenth century, of a singular couple formed by a little orphan with mysterious origins and his young Italian nurse of a similarly uncertain birth. They lead us in their wake, from Rome to Paris, from Lisbon to London, from Parma to Venice. Always followed in the shadows, for obscure reasons, by a suspicious-looking Calabrian and a troubling cardinal, they make us explore the dark intrigues of the Vatican, the pangs of a fatal passion, a gruesome duel, banter at the court of Versailles and the convulsions of the French Revolution.

What are the social climate and cultural traditions in Costa Rica which nurture "machismo" and allow the domination of women to continue in Latin America?

The life of a right-wing housewife in Chile during the prior days to Salvador Allende's military overthrow.

In Voyage of a Hand, Ruiz constructs another of his concentric labyrinths that hits us right in the multifaceted center of our confusion. We might decide that what we receive was a story full of intentions; or we might decide that it was a spineless joke empty of sense or direction. In any case, it will be difficult to deny the acid sense of humor that animates the film.

After long decades of exile, a leftist former activist returns to Chile to settle accounts with his conscience, related to the death of a colleague and political hero . The task of Atalibar is to reveal his secret. But his view clashes with the current country, godless, far from the old ideologies and where all his old colleagues have changed.

Passionate romance, brutal treachery, and selfless nobility are set against the background of Napoleon’s 1810 invasion of Portugal.

The story of the adventures, in the twilight of the eighteenth century, of a singular couple formed by a little orphan with mysterious origins and his young Italian nurse of a similarly uncertain birth. They lead us in their wake, from Rome to Paris, from Lisbon to London, from Parma to Venice. Always followed in the shadows, for obscure reasons, by a suspicious-looking Calabrian and a troubling cardinal, they make us explore the dark intrigues of the Vatican, the pangs of a fatal passion, a gruesome duel, banter at the court of Versailles and the convulsions of the French Revolution.

What are the social climate and cultural traditions in Costa Rica which nurture "machismo" and allow the domination of women to continue in Latin America?

What are the social climate and cultural traditions in Costa Rica which nurture "machismo" and allow the domination of women to continue in Latin America?

The life of a right-wing housewife in Chile during the prior days to Salvador Allende's military overthrow.

The life of a right-wing housewife in Chile during the prior days to Salvador Allende's military overthrow.

After long decades of exile, a leftist former activist returns to Chile to settle accounts with his conscience, related to the death of a colleague and political hero . The task of Atalibar is to reveal his secret. But his view clashes with the current country, godless, far from the old ideologies and where all his old colleagues have changed.

Madeleine is with her lover, Jean-Paul, when her husband arrives home and catches the two together. Madeleine kills her husband and tells Jean-Paul to flee before the police arrive. After Jean-Paul drives away, he picks up a hitchhiker. When the car, stolen by the hitchhiker, explodes, police believe the dead hitchhiker is Jean-Paul. Madeleine takes up with Jean-Paul's brother, Bastien, while Jean-Paul, arriving in Strasbourg, is mistaken for the heir to a fortune. The detective on the case spends more time writing crime novels than investigating real-life crimes.

Madeleine is with her lover, Jean-Paul, when her husband arrives home and catches the two together. Madeleine kills her husband and tells Jean-Paul to flee before the police arrive. After Jean-Paul drives away, he picks up a hitchhiker. When the car, stolen by the hitchhiker, explodes, police believe the dead hitchhiker is Jean-Paul. Madeleine takes up with Jean-Paul's brother, Bastien, while Jean-Paul, arriving in Strasbourg, is mistaken for the heir to a fortune. The detective on the case spends more time writing crime novels than investigating real-life crimes.

A satirical take on President Salvador Allende's Popular Unity process prior to the 1973 Chilean coup d'état. The film is made up of a series of short stories, in which different worlds cross paths.

A well-bred young woman who prizes the virtue of fidelity remains faithful to the doctor who deflowers her, even after he marries her invalid sister.

A well-bred young woman who prizes the virtue of fidelity remains faithful to the doctor who deflowers her, even after he marries her invalid sister.

Sarmiento made her directorial debut with the documentary with this short about a group of Chilean women dedicated to striptease.

A journey back to the darkest years of the military dictatorship, where Valeria Sarmiento, using for the first time in her career her own voice, reflects on the traces of the political violence of that period and summons the testimony of victims and privileged witnesses, but also the opinion of scientists, memory theorists and researchers of genocides of other times. The result is an intimate account of how these traces have impregnated our life stories, our bodies and also our landscape.

The film revolves around the concept of soap opera. Its structure is based on the assumption that Chilean reality does not exist, but rather is an ensemble of soap operas.

Sofía, a psychology professor, has just completed her postgraduate studies in Valparaíso, and is returning to her hometown of Valdivia when a girl’s body is discovered there. The news dismays the city's residents, and triggers memories of sexual abuse from her childhood.

A sickly young girl is given away by her father to a childless couple. Twenty years later, she marries her adopted father.

A sickly young girl is given away by her father to a childless couple. Twenty years later, she marries her adopted father.

Documentary about Cuban education. El planeta de los niños is not a documentary and not a feature film. Sarmiento actually filmed a documentary subject with the mise-en-scène and the cutting of a feature film. Without further ado, she takes the viewer into a world where adults would appear to have died out ; a society within which all functions and professions are held by children with deadly seriousness as if things have always been this way. Only right at the end does Sarmiento reveal that she shot the film at the 'Escuele de Pioneros' set up in Cuba in 1979, an institution which Fidel Castro gave to the children of his people to prepare themselves for a later working life. The film opens with an as-good-as-real wedding ceremony and progresses via a birth to a simulated battle ; from birth to death. The subtle irony with which Sarmiento portrays this 'Utopian' world was not understood by all German critics.

The story of a neurotic bachelor who, after marrying a beautiful woman, submits her to increasingly deranged accusations of infidelity and pleas for forgiveness.

The story of a neurotic bachelor who, after marrying a beautiful woman, submits her to increasingly deranged accusations of infidelity and pleas for forgiveness.

Chilean exiles in Paris discuss the problems facing them. They kidnap and attempt to re-educate a touring singer from their fatherland.

Chilean director Valeria Sarmiento weaves a tale of love, betrayal, and civil unrest centering around a nightclub in 1950s pre-Communist Cuba in her 2002 romantic drama Rosa La China. Notorious businessman Santiago Ordenez (Juan Luis Galiardo), who primarily goes by the nickname Dulzara, operates a high-profile club/casino with the protection of some local politicians with whom he has dubious relationships. A large portion of the club's success is due to its star singer, Rosa (Luisa Maria Jiminez), who also happens to be Dulzara's lover. Rosa, however, has recently started into another affair with a somewhat younger womanizer named Marcos (Abel Rodriguez).

J’AI RENCONTRÉ L’ARBRE À PAIN, the fourth episode of the French television series Botaniques, was filmed in Puerto Limón, Costa Rica. Focusing on the breadfruit tree and its histories of forced migration through slavery, the film foregrounds struggles over the ownership of the commons.

No synopsis available yet.

No synopsis available yet.