Chile 1973-2023: Between the Pinochet Machine & Thousands of Imagined Nations: Film/Video

Important film archive in Chile, based at the University of Chile

Streaming documentaries and films, including works by Guzmán and others

Documentary directed by Patricio Guzmán and Jacques Bidou. DVD available in the Jones Media Center.

Includes
Disc 1: The Battle of Chile, part 1: The insurrection of the bourgeoisie (1975) (96 min.) -- Disc 2: The Battle of Chile, part 2: The coup d'état (1976) (88 min.) -- Disc 3: The Battle of Chile, part 3: The power of the people (1978) (79 min.) -- Disc 4: Chile, obstinate memory (1997) (57 min.) + Bonus interview with Patricio Guzman (22 min.) -- Disc 5: The Pinochet case (2001)(109 min.) -- Disc 6: Salvador Allende (2004) (100 min.) -- Disc 7: Nostalgia de la luz (2010) (90 min.) + 5 Bonus films by (2010) (81 min.) -- Disc 8: Bonus disc- Filming Obstinately, meeting Patricio Guzmán (2014) (98 min.)

Guzman travels 10,000 feet above sea level to the driest place on earth, the Atacama Desert. There astronomers from all over the world gather atop the mountains to observe the stars and the sky is so translucent, allowing them to see right to the boundaries of the universe. The Atacama is also the place where the harsh heat of the sun keeps human remains intact: those of Pre-Columbian mummies; 19th century explorers and miners; and the remains of political prisoners, "disappeared" by the Chilean army after the military coup of September, 1973. So while astronomers examine the most distant and oldest galaxies, at the foot of the mountains, women, surviving relatives of the disappeared whose bodies were dumped here, search, even after twenty-five years, for the remains of their loved ones, to reclaim their families' histories.

Director Patricio Guzmán connects the presence and importance of water in Chile's geography with its role in the country's select historical and cultural events, including the journey of Jemmy Button and the indigenous tribes of western Patagonia and the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

"Patricio Guzmán left Chile more than 40 years ago when the military dictatorship took over the democratically-elected government, but he never stopped thinking about a country, a culture, and a place on the map that he never forgot. After covering the North in Nostalgia for the Light and the South in The Pearl Button, his shots get up-close with what he calls "the vast revealing backbone of Chile's past and recent history"

Explores the 2019 protests in Santiago, Chile, and looks at the contemporary social movements in relation to the country's history, featuring footage from the protests and interviews with activists.

In the middle of the Cold War, the University of Chicago gave scholarships to a group of Chilean students to study economics under the teachings of Milton Friedman. Twenty years later, during Pinochet's dictatorship, they changed the destiny of Chile. This insightful documentary, narrated by the Chicago Boys themselves, brings a retrospective look that helps to understand the present and questions the idea of 'the end justifies the means.'

In a Latin American country in the throes of a military coup, Charles Horman, an American journalist and filmmaker living there with his wife Joyce, disappears--never to be seen again. His father joins Joyce in a wild-goose chase through bureaucratic dead ends. They eventually come to suspect that the American consulate is lying to them about Charles' disappearance and about their country's investment in the coup's success.

In 1973, the Chilean military, under the direction of General Augusto Pinochet and backed by the CIA, overthrew the shaky socialist government of democratically elected President Salvador Allende. The coup led to the murder of 3,000 leftist Allende supporters and the detention of an estimated 250,000 political prisoners. Set against the background of the political instability that led to the crisis, Andrés Wood's Machuca is the moving story of the friendship between two boys from different sides of the social spectrum.

The film captures the advertising tactics in the political campaigns for the 1988 plebiscite, when the Chilean citizenry decided whether or not dictator Augusto Pinochet should stay in power for another eight years. At the 85th Academy Awards the film was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

"After the 1973 coup in Chile that deposed democratically elected President Salvador Allende and brought General Augusto Pinochet to power, the former members of Allende's cabinet are imprisoned on Dawson Island, the world's southernmost concentration camp. ... Filmmaker Miguel Littin follows the ordeal of these men who are determined to survive and provide history with their testimony"