Downloads: Press Release

Chilean Women Share Stories of Love, Loss and Change During 60-Year Ritual of Tea, Conversation and Friendship

A Co-production of ITVS International; A Co-presentation with Latino Public Broadcasting”

“A bite-size confection whose surface sweetness hides hints of more complex flavors, ‘Tea Time’ is…intriguing… will strike a particular chord with more mature audiences.”
— Neil Young, The Hollywood Reporter

Can we talk? The answer has been a resounding “yes” for a group of five Chilean women who have gathered once a month for the past 60 years to speak their minds–and reveal the current state of their hearts and souls.

In an abiding ritual of friendship and survival, these now-elderly Santiago women have come together for tea and pastries–and talk–during an era of intense social and personal change. Director Maite Alberdi, granddaughter of one of the group members, captures their intimate, charming and poignant gatherings in Tea Time, which has its national broadcast premiere on PBS’s POV (Point of View) series on Monday, July 27, 2015 at 10 p.m. (check local listings). POV is American television’s longest-running independent documentary series and the recipient of a 2013 MacArthur Foundation Award for Creative and Effective Institutions.

Five years in the making, Tea Time is not to be mistaken for a television chat show. The gatherings begin promptly at 5 p.m. with the saying of grace, after which the topics might range from marriage, divorce, soccer and gossip to illness and mortality. Not a hair is out of place among the well-coiffed, elegant and highly cultured women, who may disagree on many topics but are always genial. Voices are never raised, except perhaps in laughter.

While all five core participants — Alicia, Gema, Angélica, Ximena and Maria Teresa (Alberdi’s grandmother) — have similar backgrounds and all graduated from the same Catholic high school in the 1950s, their lives have taken different paths. One has never married: “She had lovers, but no one gave her what she wanted,” says Maria Teresa, who does most of the narration. Others had husbands in the military, while another who was not able to pursue college takes continuing-education courses. High school photographs show all five in the bloom of youth; the film illuminates them in the sometimes hard-won glow of a lifetime of experiences.

Tea Time takes us through a rite of friendship and shows the importance of traditions and celebrations and how rituals can help life make sense,” says director Maite Alberdi.

While the gathering is routine, the array of topics and concerns is ever-changing and often surprising. And while the participants are dignified, there is no lack of frankness or candor–nor is there fear of broaching topics completely off the radar earlier in their lives, including contraception and homosexuality. Sometimes the talk even gets a bit risqué, invoking cries of “Please, don’t continue!”

Tea Time allows us to enter a female private space,” Alberdi adds. “Around the table, intimate and universal themes intersect and are analyzed from the particular perspective of elderly women who look at the world through the lens of their conservative backgrounds, and who have been forced to adapt.”

The social changes and upheavals of the past half-century are never far from their minds. During one gathering, they read from a home economics textbook from their high-school days that stipulates that a father’s job is to make a living while the mother runs the household and raises the children. “Women do both jobs now,” the ladies agree.

Marriage is deconstructed — and reconstructed. “The truth is, we were raised to get married,” Alicia recalls amid general agreement that traditional family life is best. But their marriages are not necessarily of the storybook variety; some have been visited by infidelity, divorce or the death of a spouse.

The sexual revolution, meantime, is seen as an absolute rout of the values with which the women were raised. “So, how come these young girls don’t love themselves more?” Maria Teresa asks. “Sixty years have gone by,” Ximena explains, and Angélica completes the thought: “Virginity is over; it is no longer a value.” These observations are not made in bitterness and are often punctuated with laughter.

Some of the most captivating moments in the film are close studies of the women’s faces, which reveal lifetimes of struggle and change, but also lingering joy. During opening grace it is reported that a friend has died, which initially brings sorrow, then laughter as better times are recalled. The women sing songs, read love letters and talk about their health problems and the inevitability of death. The individual strength of each is amplified by the communal strength gained via their longstanding companionship.

Although the documentary is almost entirely filmed around a table, there is a subtle lushness to it. The pastries are small works of art and seemingly rich enough to transmit calories through the camera. A soundtrack of guitar and whimsical violin is playful and sensual.

Alberdi sees a timelessness in this ritual. “As a granddaughter of one of the characters, I have been observing this monthly rite since childhood, and I have always seen the women in the same way: They have never aged. I’m interested in portraying this new way of living old age–in which new possibilities arise, though inevitably, they may be the last ones.”

A celebration of the small things that sustain us, Tea Time illuminates a beautiful paradox: As the world they were born into slips away — “Take me back to that age when to live was to dream,” Maria Teresa says near the film’s end–these friendships grow ever stronger and more profound.

Tea Time, an Official Selection of the 2014 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), is a co-production of Micromundo Producciones E.I.R.L. and ITVS International, with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

About the Filmmaker:

Maite Alberdi, Director/Writer/Cinematographer
Maite Alberdi, born in Chile in 1983, studied film and aesthetics at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Her first film, The Lifeguard (2011), was released internationally at IDFA. Tea Time, her second documentary feature, won the award for best Chilean film at the 2014 Santiago International Film Festival, where Alberdi also won for best director of a Chilean film. Tea Time won a 2014 EDA Award for Best Female-Directed Documentary at IDFA and Best Documentary awards from the 2015 Guadalajara Film Festival and the 2015 Cartagena Film Festival, plus the

Knight Documentary Achievement Award from the 2015 Miami International Film Festival. Alberdi, who lives in Santiago, Chile, teaches documentary directing at several universities and is co-author of the book Teorías del cine documental en Chile: 1957-1973.

Credits:
Director: Maite Alberdi
Producer: Clara Taricco
Cinematographer: Pablo Valdés
Sound Director: Boris Herrera
Camera: Pablo Valdés, Maite Alberdi
Writers: Maite Alberdi, Sebastián Brahm, Juan Eduardo Murillo
Editors: Juan Eduardo Murillo, Sebastián Brahm

Running Time: 56:46

POV Series Credits:
Executive Producers: Chris White, Simon Kilmurry
Associate Producer: Nicole Tsien
Coordinating Producer: Nikki Heyman

About ITVS

Independent Television Service funds, presents and promotes award-winning documentaries and dramas on public television, innovative new media projects on the Web, and the Emmy® Award-winning weekly series Independent Lens on PBS. Mandated by Congress in 1988 and funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, ITVS has brought more than 1,000 independently produced programs to date to American audiences. For more information, visit itvs.org.

About POV

Produced by American Documentary, Inc., POV is public television’s premier showcase for nonfiction films. The series airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on PBS from June to September, with primetime specials during the year. Since 1988, POV has been the home for the world’s boldest contemporary filmmakers, celebrating intriguing personal stories that spark conversation and inspire action. Always an innovator, POV discovers fresh new voices and creates interactive experiences that shine a light on social issues and elevate the art of storytelling. With our documentary broadcasts, original online programming and dynamic community engagement campaigns, we are committed to supporting films that capture the imagination and present diverse perspectives.

POV films have won 32 Emmy® Awards, 18 George Foster Peabody Awards, 12 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, three Academy Awards®, the first-ever George Polk Documentary Film Award and the Prix Italia. The POV series has been honored with a Special News & Documentary Emmy Award for Excellence in Television Documentary Filmmaking, two IDA Awards for Best Continuing Series and the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) Award for Corporate Commitment to Diversity. More information is available at www.pbs.org/pov.

POV Community Engagement and Education (www.pbs.org/pov/engage)

POV’s Community Engagement and Education team works with educators, community organizations and PBS stations to present more than 650 free screenings every year. In addition, we distribute free discussion guides and standards-aligned lesson plans for each of our films. With our community partners, we inspire dialogue around the most important social issues of our time.

POV Digital (www.pbs.org/pov/)

Since 1994, POV Digital has driven new storytelling initiatives and interactive production for POV. The department created PBS’s first program website and its first web-based documentary (POV’s Borders) and has won major awards, including a Webby Award (and six nominations) and an Online News Association Award. POV Digital continues to explore the future of independent nonfiction media through its digital productions and the POV Hackathon lab, where media makers and technologists collaborate to reinvent storytelling forms. @povdocs on Twitter.

American Documentary, Inc. (www.amdoc.org/)

American Documentary, Inc. (AmDoc) is a multimedia company dedicated to creating, identifying and presenting contemporary stories that express opinions and perspectives rarely featured in mainstream media outlets. AmDoc is a catalyst for public culture, developing collaborative strategic engagement activities around socially relevant content on television, online and in community settings. These activities are designed to trigger action, from dialogue and feedback to educational opportunities and community participation.

Major funding for POV is provided by PBS, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding comes from Nancy Blachman and David desJardins, Bertha Foundation, The Fledgling Fund, Marguerite Casey Foundation, Ettinger Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee, and public television viewers. POV is presented by a consortium of public television stations, including KQED San Francisco, WGBH Boston and THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG.

Contacts:
POV Communications: 212-989-7425. Alternate contact: 206-790-8697.
Cathy Fisher, cfisher@pov.org; Brian Geldin bgeldin@pov.org

POV online pressroom: www.pbs.org/pov/pressroom

Published by

POV Pressroom
Produced by American Documentary, Inc., POV is public television’s premier showcase for nonfiction films. Since 1988, POV has been the home for the world’s boldest contemporary filmmakers, celebrating intriguing personal stories that spark conversation and inspire action. Always an innovator, POV discovers fresh new voices and creates interactive experiences that shine a light on social issues and elevate the art of storytelling. With our documentary broadcasts, original online programming and dynamic community engagement campaigns, we are committed to supporting films that capture the imagination and present diverse perspectives.