The Movie Teller

A moving tribute to cinema and the magical power of storytelling, the new film from multi award-winning director Lone Scherfig (An Education, One Day, Italian for Beginners) follows a young woman’s coming-of-age in a remote Chilean mining town.

1966. The nitrate salt flats of Chile’s Atacama Desert, the driest place on Earth, couldn’t feel further from the glamour of Hollywood, and life for the saltpetre miners is both hard and precarious. Every day is the same for Medardo (Antonio de La Torre, Marshland), his wife María Magnolia (Academy Award-nominee Bérénice Bejo, The Artist) and their four young children, except Sundays when they eagerly visit the cinema to disappear into other worlds together.

But after the ritual is disrupted by tragedy, María Magnolia’s desire for something more than just hardship takes hold. Her passion and sophisticated taste enchants Nansen (Daniel Brühl), the mine’s soft-spoken, but respected, administrator, and compels her to leave town.

With money tight, Medardo can only afford one ticket to the movies each week, so he sends his daughter (striking newcomer Sara Becker) alone - she has an almost uncanny gift for recounting the films afterwards - from Spartacus to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg - and bringing them back to life for those who weren't there. Word spreads about her special talent, and she is soon transporting the poor inhabitants of her hometown with the stories of drama, humour, romance, and courage she’s discovered, allowing them to escape their daily lives, at a time when the country is being transformed forever…

An adaptation of the award-winning autobiographical novel by Hernán Rivera Letelier, Scherfig’s film is a celebration of imagination and the need to find love, community and hope where none of these seem possible.