Patricio Guzmn: fierce filmmaker who chronicled 50 years of Chile's history after Pinochet coup

[Judi Lynn]

Published: September 13, 2023 11.39am EDT

This week marks half a century since the beginning of Augusto Pinochet’s brutal 17-year dictatorship – a dark and devastating period of Chile’s history that continues to leave scars on the South American country.

On September 11 1973, Pinochet led a right-wing military coup, ending the democratically-elected socialist Popular Unity coalition of President Salvador Allende.

Anyone wanting to understand Chile’s turbulent political and social recent history should turn to the films of Patricio Guzmán, the country’s most important documentary filmmaker, who has just been honoured with Chile’s National Arts Prize for his work.

His significance as a filmmaker is being marked with a retrospective of his work in a collaboration with Cinema Tropical and Icarus Films in New York this month. The week-long event, Dreaming of Utopia: 50 Years of Revolutionary Hope and Memory, features cinema screenings of Guzmán’s films including new restorations of the previously unreleased The First Year (1972) and his classic film The Battle of Chile (1975).

This is welcome recognition. Despite being an important award-winning filmmaker with an international reputation, Guzmán’s work deserves to be more widely known.

In exile under Pinochet
Like so many Chileans under Pinochet’s dictatorship, Guzmán was forced into exile in 1973 following a period in the notorious Estadio Nacional (National Stadium), where many thousands of political prisoners were tortured and murdered. After some time in Cuba and Spain, the director made his home in France.

More:
https://theconversation.com/patricio-guzman-fierce-filmmaker-who-chronicled-50-years-of-chiles-history-after-pinochet-coup-211642