One Hundred Children Waiting for a Train

A documentary that shows the reality lived in Chile at the end of the 20th century and that continues until these days, but no longer with access to cinema, but to other kinds of things. In this one it is seen how the mind of the children releases the imagination when seeing the films and the inventions that set the simulations of the cinema.

Alicia spent 30 years doing this workshop, until 2015; It reached approximately 6,500 boys and girls and in 2019 it was nominated for the National Award for Performing and Audiovisual Arts, which was finally won by Ramón Griffero.

If you wanna know why it will be great to make a movie the children in this movie will tell you. Seeing the looks on their faces when they watch films of the Lumiere brothers or Charlie Chaplin is the best feeling you could ever experience sitting in your home watching a foreign documentary.

From time to time, filmmakers have created numerous tributes to the medium. This documentary ranks among the best ode to cinema and it will feel the same for the couch viewer, average one or serious film buff. But I can't categorise it as a family time cinema, it is far from a children's film.

This could've been a much crueller film aimed to be a tearjerker to poach awards and critical acclaim. The deep issues, political tension significantly perceptible to audience of Ignacio Aguero films. He touches upon various themes with realism and nostalgia with cinema and childhood as the backstory. I'm really glad he hasn't stopped and still continues his love for the medium till this day.

In this documentary, Aguero covers the film workshops conducted by Professor Alicia Vega for underprivileged children in a chapel on the outskirts of Santiago de Chile. She takes the children on journey who learn about cinema amid the repression of the dictatorship.

The emotion is captured so beautifully as they remain largely puzzled with the screen. It is also jam-packed with overwhelming nostalgia & references to films, which is awe-inspiring ode to cinema itself that also succeeds as one pure escapist bliss for everyone who adores the medium. The love that is born between cinema and the kids in the workshop. I bet once boarded this train will take you on a nostalgic ride to give a hug to the magic called Cinema. This will appeal to all cinephiles and i would also recommend Bill Morrison's Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016), Viviana García-Besné's Perdida (2009), Bertrand Tavernier's Journey Through French Cinema (2016), Stephen Kijak's Cinemania (2002), Mohsen Makhmalbaf's Hello Cinema (1995), Sandhya Suri's Around India with a Movie Camera (2018), Lumière! The Adventure of Cinema Begins (2016) and the Cinema Travellers (2016) worth checking out in that regards.