Songs of Repression

In the middle of an idyllic valley at the foot of the Andes in central Chile lies the “Villa Baviera”. But the beauty of this modern tourist resort hides a dark past. Built on the site
of the former Colonia Dignidad, a sect with the sadist Paul Schäfer at its centre committed atrocities there for decades. After Schäfer fled and was subsequently sentenced, many inhabitants left the colony to build a future far away from their traumatic experiences. Yet some 120 people across three generations still live in the place where they experienced and carried out physical and psychological violence. They oscillate between reality and extenuation, processing and repression, remembering and forgetting. The filmmaking duo Estephan Wagner and Marianne Hougen-Moraga gained unique access to the victims and perpetrators of Colonia Dignidad. SONGS OF REPRESSION creates an oppressively absurd atmosphere and shows the contrasting ways of dealing with trauma through the haunting statements of contemporary witnesses.