Tea Time

GALLERY

ABOUT THE FILM

Director/Producer: Maite Alberdi

Genre: Documentary

Program Length: 56:46 minutes

Broadcast Date: Premiere Broadcast July 27, 2015 on PBS (POV) (Please Check Local Listings)

Ritual is often associated with powerful and impersonal institutions, but for five Chilean women, ritual centers on a monthly gathering that has sustained them through 60 years of personal and societal change. Tea Time is a charming and poignant look at how a seemingly mundane routine of tea and pastries has helped the well-heeled participants commemorate life’s joys and cope with infidelity, illness and death. A celebration of the small things that help us endure, Tea Time, filmed over five years, illuminates a beautiful paradox: As familiar worlds slip away, friendships grow ever stronger and more profound.

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

Maite Alberdi (Producer/Director)

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.