Yo no canto por cantar

INTERNATIONAL PANORAMA – IN-EDIT CHILE 2024 AWARD

Mauricia Saavedra is a poet and rural singer from central Chile, devoted to tradition since the age of 12. She has cultivated the ‘guitarra traspuesta’ (folk guitar with alternate tunings) and the ‘canto a lo humano’ (secular sung poetry), performing at festivals and gatherings throughout the country. She defines herself as a “warrior woman”: being a single mother and a lesbian has forced her to face violence and countless hardships—challenges she says she has been able to heal through song. This documentary shows how she has chosen to support other women singers who have lived through painful experiences. She learns to listen to them, to reconnect them with their dignity, and to transform—through this form of sung poetry and their fighting spirit—the entrenched cycles of violence in rural Chile.

Cast: Mauricia Saavedra, María Eugenia Manríquez, Amalia Céspedes, Ana Julia Rojas, Doralisa Gómez, Francisca Navarro.

Presentation with the film team