Documentary filmed in Chile and France, which tells the story of Óscar Castro, his life devoted to theater and the emergence of Teatro Aleph on the Chilean and world stage.

After the military coup of 1973, the theater company was disbanded, however, Óscar Castro continued to perform theater, this time as a political prisoner with his companions in the concentration camps. Óscar Castro was too cumbersome to disappear, the Military Junta got rid of him by sending him to Paris! Already in exile, he formed the Aleph Theater in Paris, where he remains to this day.

Welcomed off the plane by Ariane Mnouchkine, Jack Lang, and a handful of exiles, he quickly built a new scene, met Robert Doisneau, who would become the president of Aleph France, worked with Pierre Richard, the filmmaker Claude Lelouch, with Pierre Barouh... with the children of the Ivry sur Seine neighborhood where one day he left his suitcases. This story shared with thousands of other Latin American refugees gives rise to the play l'Exilé Mateluna, a moment of pure happiness where one oscillates constantly between laughter and tears....

It is this piece that is at the origin of the film Exile on stage. And it is through it that we tell the extraordinary story of this theater of happiness that marks the great difference between France and Chile...

We shot all this great nonsense between the cabaret shows, the sometimes tense rehearsals, the sequences of make-up and confidences? Two years of absolute happiness, of continuous chatting. An intimate dialogue one on one or twenty-one... in a language that sometimes ties throats and provokes tears.

We selected the best moments and edited sixty minutes. The film is there.

Directed by Marina Paugam and Jean Michel Rodrigo | Camera and editing: Marina Paugam | Sound: Andres Malatesta | Production: Mécanos Productions / Vosges Télévision et Cinaps TV

Este creador multidisciplinario nació en Santiago en 1947. Veinte años después, junto a un grupo de amigos y artistas autodidactas, fundó el Teatro Aleph. Con una pluma provocadora e inspirada por los movimientos políticos y sociales de la época, sus textos se convirtieron prontamente en íconos del teatro latinoamericano. Debido a su labor de difusión teatral durante los primeros años de la dictadura, en 1976 salió al exilio a Francia, donde rearmó la compañía con la que trabajó hasta el último día de su vida en Europa.

Fundada en 1967 en Chile por el director, dramaturgo y actor Óscar Castro, nació como una agrupación teatral conformada por estudiantes sin formación teatral de distintas universidades, quienes tuvieron como maestros a artistas como Héctor Noguera, el brasileño Augusto Boal y el polaco Jerzy Grotowski, entre otros. Durante la dictadura recorrieron los campos de concentración presentando sus obras y, a partir de 1976 -debido al exilio de su director- siguió su trabajo en Francia. En 2013, se refunda en Chile Teatro Aleph, dirigida por Gabriela Olguín.