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.
Winner of the Un Certain Regard Award at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo recalls the emotional vibrancy of Almodóvar and continues Chile’s proud legacy of queer cinema—marking Céspedes as one of the most exciting new voices in world cinema.
The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo features a cast of predominantly non-actors and first-timers, with the film powerfully led by newcomer Tamara Cortés in the role of twelve-year-old Lidia. Making up the rest of the cast is trans activist-actor Paula Dinamarca (Naomi Campbel, Nona: If They Soak Me, I’ll Burn Them) and Luis Dubó (The Year of the Tiger, Dawson Isla 10)—both collaborators on Céspedes’ previous shorts—breakout actor Matías Catalán (Bitter Gold), Pedro Muñoz, Vicente Caballero, and newly discovered screen talents Bruna Ramírez, Sirena González, Alexa Quijano, and Francisco Día Z who make up the ensemble of Lidia’s chosen family—all of whom Céspedes cast from within the Chilean trans and queer community.
Inspired by his own experience growing up close to the queer community in the outskirts of Santiago, The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo marks the thirty-year-old filmmaker’s third film to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival, following his 2018 short and directing debut The Summer of the Electric Lion, which won the Cinéfondation First Prize and the Nest Prize at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, and 2022 short The Melting Creatures, which premiered at Cannes Film Festival’s Semaine de la Critique and continued with bows at Toronto, San Sebastián, and Clermont-Ferrand.