Pedro Chaskel

Biography

Pedro Chaskel, is one of the main precursors of the so-called New Chilean Cinema, as a director, cameraman and editor of numerous short and feature length films.

An early emigrant from Germany at the age of seven, Chaskel became a Chilean national in 1952, and studied architecture at the Universidad de Chile from 1951 to 1954.

That year, he became a founding member and animator of the Cine Club Universitario de la Federación de Estudiantes de Chile (FECH). A conspirator in the exhibition of films that did not come to Chile through the regular commercial circuit, Chaskel promoted, together with a group of contemplative people, a custom that was not very common in Chile: the cinema forum, or...