Diego Varela

Películas

Al Final del Partido
Director of Photography
A story of five voices passionate about the legendary national sport, characters who know a reality that the vast majority of fans are unaware of. Those who live the joys and sorrows in their football clubs on a daily basis. There is something that unifies all of them: the passion for their work and their team.
Una de nosotras
Camera Operator
Documental sobre Belela Herrera, quien dedicó su vida a salvar la de otros: los perseguidos políticos, los desplazados por guerras civiles, los refugiados del mundo. Belela fue representante del Alto Comisionado de la ONU para los Refugiados (ACNUR) en los años más duros de las dictaduras militares en América Latina. El documental también es la historia de una mujer que se inventó a sí misma y torció el destino reservado a las muchachas de su clase social.
Conversaciones con Turiansky
Director of Photography
Retrato biográfico y crónica sobre el movimiento obrero y la izquierda uruguaya, “Conversaciones con Turiansky” combina dos relatos. El primero retrata al hijo de inmigrantes, al ingeniero apasionado por el misterio de la electricidad, al hombre enamorado, al cinéfilo. El otro sitúa al protagonista en su tiempo: las luchas sindicales, el avance del autoritarismo, la cárcel y los desafíos del presente. En ambos están presentes la lucidez, el compromiso, la discreta ternura y aún el humor de Wladimir Turiansky.
El padre de Gardel
Camera Operator
For thirty years, Carlos Escayola was the main politician of the small town of Tacuarembó, Uruguay. This farmer was known both for his political and cultural achievements (including the construction of a theater), and for the reputation of seducer, which earned him one of the greatest family polemics in the history of the region.
El padre de Gardel
Director of Photography
For thirty years, Carlos Escayola was the main politician of the small town of Tacuarembó, Uruguay. This farmer was known both for his political and cultural achievements (including the construction of a theater), and for the reputation of seducer, which earned him one of the greatest family polemics in the history of the region.
El Almanaque
Director of Photography
La historia del militante del Movimiento de Liberación Nacional-Tupamaros Jorge Tiscornia, preso político uruguayo, durante 4646 días a partir del año 1972, en el Penal de Libertad, de las curiosas estrategias que las víctimas de la persecución política para sobrevivir y del registro minucioso que llevó de ese período oculto en un par de zuecos con plataforma de madera que él mismo pergeñó.
Chico Ferry
Director of Photography
Con 75 años, Chico Ferry es cuidacoches de una funeraria junto a su mujer. Pero los fines de semana altera su rutina y se transfigura en el cantante de una orquesta de música tropical que rememora tiempos en el que fue una estrella.
El Círculo
Director of Photography
Award-winning documentary about how one Uruguayan leftist survived solitary confinement during the dirty war. The story of former Tupamaro guerilla fighter, Henry Engler, whose prolonged confinement and torture during the Uruguayan dictatorship led to a mental breakdown. Today Dr. Engler is a Swedish citizen and a scientist renowned for his research into Alzheimer’s disease. In this impressive documentary, the scientist visits the places of his painful past, painting an intimate and disturbing portrait of prison life under the dictatorship.
Historias de Militantes
Camera Operator
This documentary tells the story of a group of Uruguayan political and social activists who began or intensified their activities in the 1960s. What emerges is how diverse the Uruguayan left was in thought and action in fields like attitudes to armed struggle, the place of women and children, the historical significance of the Frente Amplio Party and the ways in which the old ideals have found expression - or not, as the case may be - under the first left wing national government in the history of the country. The documentary was made for Casa Bertolt Brecht, and is geared to stimulating debate and training new generations of activists.
Historias de Militantes
Director of Photography
This documentary tells the story of a group of Uruguayan political and social activists who began or intensified their activities in the 1960s. What emerges is how diverse the Uruguayan left was in thought and action in fields like attitudes to armed struggle, the place of women and children, the historical significance of the Frente Amplio Party and the ways in which the old ideals have found expression - or not, as the case may be - under the first left wing national government in the history of the country. The documentary was made for Casa Bertolt Brecht, and is geared to stimulating debate and training new generations of activists.
Dos Hítleres
Camera Operator
One is a former police officer, bodyguard and hairdresser. Currently retired, he takes care of his extravagant and almost hundred-year-old illiterate mother. He writes poems and hopes to see them published one day. The other, a declared womanizer, workaholic, and leftist, was imprisoned during the dictatorship, runs a small grocery shop, and controls the life of his young second wife. Both were born in the Uruguayan hinterland during the Second World War, and share the same name as well as the fact that neither has wished to change it. The film is a tragicomic portrait of a country whose cultural diversity, its peculiar history and the character of its inhabitants allow the existence of exceptional and remarkable persons that depict a live picture of Uruguay, with its plurality and contradictions, its small and large history, without departing a single moment from irony or reflection.
Dos Hítleres
Director of Photography
One is a former police officer, bodyguard and hairdresser. Currently retired, he takes care of his extravagant and almost hundred-year-old illiterate mother. He writes poems and hopes to see them published one day. The other, a declared womanizer, workaholic, and leftist, was imprisoned during the dictatorship, runs a small grocery shop, and controls the life of his young second wife. Both were born in the Uruguayan hinterland during the Second World War, and share the same name as well as the fact that neither has wished to change it. The film is a tragicomic portrait of a country whose cultural diversity, its peculiar history and the character of its inhabitants allow the existence of exceptional and remarkable persons that depict a live picture of Uruguay, with its plurality and contradictions, its small and large history, without departing a single moment from irony or reflection.
Cerca de las Nubes
Camera Operator
A small community of old people are living in a rural town, deep in the countryside in Uruguay, lost in a vast expanse of green grass. They do not have electricity or running water. They watch the time go by slowly and silently, but they do not complain or make excuses as they wait for the new day. That's just what life is like in Quebracho.
Cerca de las Nubes
Director of Photography
A small community of old people are living in a rural town, deep in the countryside in Uruguay, lost in a vast expanse of green grass. They do not have electricity or running water. They watch the time go by slowly and silently, but they do not complain or make excuses as they wait for the new day. That's just what life is like in Quebracho.
Memorias de Mujeres
Camera Operator
The Punta de Rieles prison was where most female political prisoners were incarcerated during the dictatorship in Uruguay. The way up to the building led through “the meadow” where there were animals grazing, and the prison itself was surrounded with flowers. The place seemed eminently liveable, almost comfortable, and at first sight there was no sign of the silent struggle going on behind those walls. This documentary is an attempt to reconstruct life at the prison through the testimony of some of the hundreds of women who were there and who resisted the military regime's attempts to grind them down and destroy them.
Memorias de Mujeres
Director of Photography
The Punta de Rieles prison was where most female political prisoners were incarcerated during the dictatorship in Uruguay. The way up to the building led through “the meadow” where there were animals grazing, and the prison itself was surrounded with flowers. The place seemed eminently liveable, almost comfortable, and at first sight there was no sign of the silent struggle going on behind those walls. This documentary is an attempt to reconstruct life at the prison through the testimony of some of the hundreds of women who were there and who resisted the military regime's attempts to grind them down and destroy them.
La Espera
Cinematography
In Montevideo, Sonja cares for her invalid mother, works in a garment factory, and has little going for her. Her neighbor Modesto, an older man who lives alone, types anonymous letters to her. Her mother is difficult -- demanding and miserable, afraid of death. Sonja meets Ernesto, a nurseryman, and finally there may be some possibilities in her life. Does freedom beckon?
Divinas palabras
La acción de este descarnado retrato de la naturaleza humana, basado en la obra de Valle-Inclán, transcurre en la Galicia de principios del siglo XX. Para huir de la pobreza, la esposa de un sacristán de aldea utiliza a un niño hidrocéfalo como atracción de feria. Eso la llevará a enfrentarse a su cuñada, que tiene el mismo propósito, y a meterse de lleno en un mundo en que residen las más bajas pasiones.