Welcome back to another review from this year’s Locarno Film Festival! From the “Piazza Grande” section comes Il Cileno.
Title: Il Cileno
Director: Sergio Castro San Martín
Premiered: August 13, 2026 (Switzerland – Locarno Film Festival)
Runtime: 1 hour 39 minutes
Aldo (Camilo Arancibia) is a Chilean resistance fighter who specializes in explosives. When the fascist regime cracks down, he decides to flee to Italy and seek political asylum. He winds up landing in Turin, Italy and decides to carve out a new path in life.
While he could have easily slipped right back into life as a resistance fighter, he’s chosen to work at a factory. With hard work and some saving, he hopes to be able to afford to bring his wife and son over from Chile. As his luck would have it, things are just as unstable in Italy as they were back in Chile.
It’s only a matter of time before Aldo is recruited by a local militant group. They’ve caught wind of what he’s capable of building and want him working on their side. Hesitant at first, Aldo agrees to work with them on one condition: he’s no longer going to place the bombs. He’ll build whatever they need, but that’s as far as his involvement goes.
Will this new self-imposed morality rule be enough to keep Aldo on the straight and narrow?
If you told me I’d get to watch a film about a man who fights against two different fascist regimes, I’d say sign me up. Though if what you showed me was Il Cileno, I’d wind up walking away frustratingly disappointed. With the rise of right-wing nationalism across the globe, this should’ve been a slam-dunk. Instead, we get an uneven film that is rather light on substance.
Now it’s not all bad. The costume design, production design, and cinematography all deserve praise. You feel like you’re in the late ’70s and the camerawork excels during the few tense action sequences we get.
However, for a film dealing with the oppressive political landscape of two different countries, we get next to nothing that explains any of it. Either you’re aware ahead of time or you’re left to do your own homework once the credits roll. Sure, we follow Aldo through his explosive-making ways, but everything he’s supposedly fighting against is kept in the background.
This is said to be loosely inspired by the life of Aldo Marín. I guess giving credit where it’s due, this made me curious about the real-life Aldo Marín and his story. While I have no interest in revisiting Il Cileno, I’d at least be willing to look into the source material and see if that’s where the better story lies.