Vladimir Vega

Vladimir Vega was born in Chile in 1953 and came to London in 1978.  He talks about working on a short film with Ken Loach about 9/11, linking it to the coup in Chile which took place on 11 September 1973. 

Listen to Vladimir (mp3, 568kb)

Transcript

'He [Ken Loach] said, "Vladimir I got this job from France, and I wonder if we can use your story for doing this film about September 11th". It become a letter, like an open letter, for family and friends of the dead in New York.

'But the good thing also of that film is that I could say things about my country, and I think that… I could talk in that film and say, like at the beginning of the film, we have something in common, you know, friends and family murdered, and the date also is the same, but this is what happened in my country…

'And that film, September 11th, well our little film is called "My September too", allow me at least to say something for my country, and say "you, you, you were responsible", and "this is what happened to us, this is what happened to me". You know. And it’s true, it’s there, it’s written - with blood, but it’s written. And I didn’t write it, somebody else wrote it, did the writing. I lived it, somebody else did the writing… 

'When we finished the film, Ken said to me "ok I am finishing today the editing, come along and we’ll have a look together, we’ll watch it together and see what happens".

'I couldn’t watch it for two minutes and I started crying. And I went out and I sit down on the stairs and I smoke a packet of cigarettes while they were finishing watching. But then I feel, you know what I felt, I felt that somebody had taken something from my shoulders.  It was a weight that I had on my shoulders for years.'

Copyright Evelyn Oldfield Unit