Set deep in the deserts of northern Chile, The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo stars Tamara Cortés as Lidia, a brave 11-year-old girl, alongside Matías Catalán as the flamboyant Flamingo and Paula Dinamarca as the steadfast Mamá Boa.
In the moving drama, Lidia’s tight-knit queer family – including drag performers, faces rising fear as a mysterious illness sweeps their isolated mining town in the early 1980s.
The film was selected as the Chilean Oscar entry for Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards.
Written and directed by Diego Céspedes, making his feature directorial debut, The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 78th Cannes Film Festival, where it won the top prize; and opens in U.S. theaters starting on December 12th in NYC.
Set in a remote Chilean mining town in 1982, Diego Céspedes’ dazzling debut feature follows young Lidia, who grows up within a vibrant queer household led by drag performers and trans women. When a mysterious illness—rumored to spread through the gaze between men—sows fear and hysteria, the community becomes the target of suspicion and violence. Through Lidia’s eyes, Céspedes crafts a haunting allegory of love, myth, and prejudice that reimagines the early AIDS era as a queer western with poetic intimacy and desert-dry surrealism.
Speaking in an interview with Sundance Diego Céspedes reflected on the inspiration for the film saying, “Like a painting that you are doing for a long time, you bring different ideas from different places. For example, the characters are very similar to a lot of my close people. My siblings are a big inspiration for the personalities. About the topics, I’m very close to the history. I left my parents when I was a child and they had hairdressers in the suburbs – and all of the guys who worked there died of AIDS.”
Gazettely review praised the film, giving it a score of 8 and writing, “The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo immerses viewers in an atmospheric blend of ritual and rebellion, anchored by vivid performances and a richly layered narrative. Its pacing occasionally dips, but its striking visuals, evocative score and thematic depth deliver an emotionally resonant journey that lingers.”
Watch the official trailer for The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo above.
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