AFI FEST 2025 — THE MYSTERIOUS GAZE OF THE FLAMINGO

This film is about the chosen families that queer people create to survive in violent times, in order to survive that with a lot of tenderness in their lives… There are a lot of things happening in this film—drama, humor, you will find everything.

My family and I come from the suburbs of Santiago (Chile), where my parents opened a hair salon. All of the gay hairdressers ended up dying of AIDS. My mother was very close to them, but when I was growing up, she related to me a very terrifying story about AIDS. After my brother and I both came out of the closet, we were very related to the queer community, of course, and we saw this story from a different point of view. — Diego Céspedes

Join Chilean filmmaker Diego Céspedes, who brings his debut feature The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo to AFI Fest 2025 presented by Canva. The screening will be followed by a conversation with the writer-director.

Told from the point of view of young Lidia (Tamara Cortés), Céspedes has crafted a highly imaginative work set within a fierce community of crossdressers in the Chilean desert in the 1980s. Melodrama is heightened as old lovers and whispers of a strange disease enter the scene.

The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, winner of the Un Certain Regard Grand Prix at Cannes, co-stars Matías Catalán (as Flamenco), Claudia Cabezas, Luis Dubó, and, as Mamá Boa, Paula Dinamarca—a close friend of Céspedes’s whose stories inspired his screenplay. See info and links below for details.