Patricio Guzmán

Films in our catalogue

THE CORDILLERA OF DREAMS

“In Chile, when the sun rises, it had to climb hills, walls and tops before reaching the last stone of the Cordillera. In my country, the Cordillera is everywhere. But for the Chilean citizens, it is an unknown territory. After going North for (...)

MY IMAGINARY COUNTRY

“October 2019, an unexpected revolution, a social explosion. One and a half million people demonstrated in the streets of Santiago for more democracy, a more dignified life, a better education, a better health system and a new Constitution. Chile had (...)

Nostalgia For The Light

In Chile, at three thousand metres altitude, astronomers from all over the world gather together in the Atacama desert to observe the stars. The desert sky is so translucent that it allows them to see right to the boundaries of the universe. It is also a (...)

THE PEARL BUTTON

The ocean contains the history of all humanity. The sea holds the voices of the Earth and those that come from outer space. Water receives impetus from the stars and transmits it to living creatures. Water, the longest border in Chile, also holds the secret (...)

Salvador Allende

From his childhood in Valparaiso to his death during the Pinochet military coup on September 11, 1973, the life and works of Chilean president Salvador (...)

Biography

Patricio Guzmán was born in 1941 in Santiago de Chile. He studied at the «Official School of Cinematographic Art» in Madrid. He has dedicated his career to documentary cinema. His films have screened in many festivals and received international recognition. Between 1972 and 1979, he directed The Battle of Chile, a five-hour trilogy about Salvador Allende's period of government and its fall. This film is the foundation of his cinema. The North American magazine CINEASTE named it "one of the 10 best political films in the world." After Pinochet’s “coup d'état”, Patricio Guzmán was arrested and imprisoned for two weeks in the National Stadium, where he was repeatedly threatened by simulated executions. In 1973, he left Chile and moved to Cuba, then to Spain and France, but remained very attached to his country and its history. He presides over the International Documentary Festival in Santiago de Chile (FIDOCS), which he created in 1997. The Cordillera of dreams, presented in the official selection at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, closes a trilogy which begun with Nostalgia for the lights (Cannes 2010) and The pearl button (Berlin 2015). His new film, My imaginary country, is selected at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.