Sydney architecture student Nora Niasari is using the website Kickstarter to gain funding for a documentary focusing on post-earthquake Chile.

At the beginning of 2011, Nora began collaborating with a group of architects, designers and NGO’s from Chicago and Santiago who are working on a reconstruction project in the post-earthquake city of Talca, Chile. Her collaborators include architects Paul Tebben (Studio Ide) and Odile Compagnon who are instructing the multi-disciplinary post-disaster studio “COM(M)A” at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago along with Chilean NGO’s Reconstruye and Surmaule.

Over the months of June/July 201, this unique team will be designing and building a community centre in Talca in parallel with the production of 'Talca Interrupted'. As collaborators, their discoveries will provide a creative feedback loop to better integrate with the communities in Talca on a physical and social level as well as creating international awareness of the issues facing the residents through the documentary film.

In the city of Talca, 6500 homes were damaged or destroyed and only 12 have been rebuilt through government subsidies. ‘Talca Interrupted’ will uncover the human face in the wreckage of these statistics through the perspective of three characters; Pedro who has chosen to cling to his past, Ester who is trapped in her present and Jose Luis who is determined to build a new future for himself and his community. In traversing a timeline of this post-disaster city through these past, present and future instances, ‘Talca Interrupted’ explores the meaning of ‘home’ in the aftermath of an earthquake.

'TALCA INTERRUPTED' is a one-hour documentary by Nora Niasari about the search for lost identity and the meaning of ‘home’ in the aftermath of the February 27th, 2010 earthquake in Chile. Nora is a documentary filmmaker and architecture graduate from the University of Technology Sydney who has made documentary films exploring post-traumatic experiences in cities such as Beirut and Cardiff.

‘Talca Interrupted’ is currently raising money for the films production costs on the online fundraising platform Kickstarter, offering rewards for donation including DVD’s of the completed film, publications, t-shirts, physical prototypes of the architects’ designs and other such goodies.

The team has only five days to go with $20,000 still to raise. If you wan’t to help out you can head to their kickstarter page, or check out the film’s official website.

Kickstarter Page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nniasari/talca-interrupted-a-documentary-film

Official Film Website: http://talcainterrupted.com/