We say goodbye to Patricio Guzmán, “the archaeologist of removed memory”: a master of documentary filmmaking whom Biografilm had the honor of hosting on several occasions over the years.
In 2015 he won the Festival with The Pearl Button (El botón de nácar), taking home both the Best Film Unipol Award and the Audience Award. Biografilm also paid tribute to him with a dedicated section, “Omaggio a Patricio Guzmán,” featuring Nostalgia for the Light (France, Germany, Chile, Spain, USA/2010/90′) and Filmer obstinément, rencontre avec Patricio Guzmán by Boris Nicot (France/2014/98′).
In 2019 he returned to Biografilm to present the Italian premiere of The Cordillera of Dreams and to receive the Celebration of Lives Award. That same year, he held the masterclass “Poetic Cinema in the Service of Political Commitment” for Biografilm School.
These are the words with which the festival’s direction remembered him during the award ceremony:
A profound awareness of the past, combined with an unyielding passion for the struggles of the present: these are the forces that govern the soul of Patricio Guzmán, a director who, in a desert caressed by starlight, finds the inspiration to reflect on political struggle and the tragedies of humanity. […] In full coherence with his constant political commitment, this year Biografilm presents The Cordillera of Dreams, dedicated to what he himself calls the immense spine that reveals the past and present history of Chile, presented in world premiere at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Golden Eye (L’Œil d’or).
His cinema taught us to feel nostalgia for places we never lived in, and revealed to us the magic hidden in nature. A debt we could never truly repay.
