Nostalgia de la luz (Patricio Guzmán, 2010)

Writer and director: Patricio Guzmán
Producer: Renate Sachse
Cinematography and camera: Katell Djian
Sound: Freddy González
Original music: Miranda & Tobar
Astrophotography: Stéphane Guisard
Editing: Patricio Guzmán and Emmanuelle Joly
Running time: 90 minutes
Country: Chile, France

An engrossing exploration of the connections between pasts human, political and celestial, the new documentary by Patricio Guzmán (The Battle of Chile, Salvador Allende) places his ongoing quest to expose the brutal truths about the Pinochet dictatorship within a truly cosmic dimension. In the Atacama desert, one of the world’s largest astronomical telescopes peers deeply into space, aided by the lack of humidity in its arid surroundings. That same climate makes the desert an ideal location for preserving the crimes of the national past, as the astronomer’s exploration coincides with the ongoing discovery of mummified remains of the «disappeared,» the murdered opponents of Pinochet’s regime. Paralleling the quest to discover the secrets of the stars with that of the relatives of the disappeared to find the bodies of their departed, Guzmán makes thoughtful and unexpected links between these separate but related searches for truth.

Official selection Cannes 2010, Toronto 2010 (Public Award), FIDMarseille 2010, San Sebastián 2010, Punto de Vista 2010. Best documentary European Film Academy 2010.

Download high resolution images: Poster / Woman who searches / Milky Way / Patricio Guzmán and Katell Djian