Erratics, the first feature by Chilean filmmaker Thomas Woodroffe, a co-production between Chile, France and Argentina, will world-premiere in the New Directors section of the 74th San Sebastián International Film Festival (18-26 September).

In geology, a glacial erratic is a rock carried by a glacier and deposited in a landscape to which it does not belong. Woodroffe turns that image into the central metaphor of his feature-length directorial debut, written with Valeria Hofmann and Antonio Luco: a movie, too, can be displaced from film history until it finds the audience that allows it to take its place in the collective memory.

From that premise emerges a realm where landscapes retain the memory of those who inhabited them, images outlive their creators and the past never vanishes entirely. That universe is embodied by Lucien Castelnau, a filmmaker who, after spending a century trapped in a glacier, awakens in a futuristic Patagonia. Turned into a ghost and unable to rest while his work remains unseen, he sets off in search of the audience that can finally bring his images back to life. That journey is brought to life by exceptional French actor Denis Lavant, who embodies a filmmaker condemned to roam between time, memory and forgotten images.

Teetering between speculative fiction, ghost movie and a meditation on archives, Erratics poses a question that runs through the entire work: can a film truly exist if it never finds its audience? Its author states: “I believe in cinema’s capacity to become a ghost: to summon voices from distant times and return them to life in the present.”

Also a cinematographer and in charge of image post-production, Woodroffe has built a career linked to both creation and film preservation. As well as directing the short Austral Fever, which screened at Toronto, he was the cinematographer on El verano del león eléctrico, a short by Diego Céspedes, which won the First Prize of the Cinéfondation at Cannes. He has been selected for programmes such as the Locarno Filmmakers Academy, La Fabrique Cinéma, Australab, ARCA and Pop Up Film Residency, and he is currently pursuing a Master’s in Film Preservation at the Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola in San Sebastián.

Erratics was produced by Fiebre SpA (Chile), La Belle Affaire Productions (France) and Un Puma (Argentina). Its international sales are handled by MPM Premium and its Spanish distribution by Silencio Cinema.

Check out our exclusive trailer below: