GRINGUITO

Little Iv?n has spent his whole life in New York, far from the right-wing government death squads and disappearances in the night that compelled his parents to leave their native Chile. Now the word is that things have settled down at home and the young family can return at last to Santiago. But the eight-year-old doesn't want to go. Not only does he miss his American friends, he has deep anxieties bred by a child's imperfect understanding of South American politics and the reason why his father fled into exile. Iv?n's mother is heavily pregnant and Iv?n already grows jealous of the unborn baby who gets to accompany her everywhere. If Iv?n is no longer wanted at home, might he not “disappear” as well, like so many others? Once in Santiago, Iv?n runs away, finding a tenuous haven with the city's streetwalkers, vendors, and skateboarders; meanwhile Iv?n's relatives beg the police to search for him, even though the youngster mistrusts every armed cop as a sort of boogeyman. Like Guatemala's “The Silence of Neto” (19th CIFF, 1995), this is a fetching, witty, and compassionate portrait of innocent childhood in a country still haunted by guilty memories. (In Spanish with English subtitles)