Rey

Orélie Antoine de Tounens was a French country lawyer. In the middle of the nineteenth century he went to Chile. The south of the country was not under state control at the time. The Mapuche people living there were defending their own land. In 1860 Tounens declared a kingdom. He counted himself king of Araucanía and Patagonia. He said the Mapuche had chosen him. How much of that is true is not known. The response of the Chilean army was hard. Tounens was seized and put on trial. The court held that he was not of sound mind. He was placed in an asylum and then sent back to France. The film does not tell the story straight. It uses masks, animation and deliberately damaged images. In that way it asks how much of any account can be trusted. It took the special jury prize at Rotterdam. Rodrigo Lisboa and Claudio Riveros appear in the ninety minute film, a Chilean, French, German, Dutch and Qatari production Niles Atallah finished in 2017.