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 Nostalgia for the Light and South for The Pearl Button, I now feel ready to shoot this immense spine to explore its mysteries, powerful revelations of Chile's past and present history.' Patricio Guzmán

Patricio Guzmán sets out on a journey through the mountains, his narration accompanying elegant aerial shots of the mountain panorama. But his Andes are not just an impassive mountain range: the journey along its peaks also serves as a reconstruction of Chile’s history and an attempt at finding lost memory.

The film’s second half includes a tribute to cameraman Pablo Salas, who remained in Chile after the Pinochet coup to film protest and oppression. Salas's archive represents the necessity for documentation and memory, using Guzmán's guiding principles for every film since he made The Battle of Chile some four decades ago.

Winner of the Golden Eye Best Documentary at the Cannes Film Festival 2019. (ex aequo with For Sama)

2019 - Documentary
Length 85 min
Original language Spanish
Country France, Chile
Original Title: La Cordillera de los Suenos

BFI London Film Festival 2019. Patrico Guzmán's new film 'MY IMAGINARY COUNTRY is on at the BFI LFF 2022

Week Starting 7 October

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November onwards:

Patricio Guzman was born in 1941 in Santiago de Chile. He studied at the Official School of Film Art in Madrid. He has dedicated his career to documentary filmmaking, his films have been screened in many festivals and have gained international recognition.

From 1972 to 1979, he directed The Battle of Chile, a five-hour-long trilogy on Salvador Allende's government and its downfall. This film laid the foundation for his work as a director. The North American periodical CINEASTE described it as one of the ten best political films in the world.' After Pinochet's coup, Guzman was arrested and spent two weeks in the National Stadium, where he was subjected to mock executions several times. In 1973 he left Chile and moved to Cuba, then to Spain and France, although he remains deeply attached to his country and its history.

He chairs the Santiago International Documentary Film Festival (FIDOCS), which he founded in 1997. The Cordillera of Dreams is the last part of a trilogy also composed of Nostalgia for the Light (Cannes 2010) and The Pearl Button (Berlin 2015), both New Wave releases.

Filmography

2022 My Imaginary Country

2019 The Cordillera of Dreams

2015 The Pearl Button

2010 Nostalgia for the Light

2005 Mon Jules Verne

2004 Salvador Allende

2001 The Pinochet Case

1997 Chile, The Obstinate Memory

1992 The Southern Cross

1987 En nombre de Dios

1983 La Rosa de los Vientos

1972-79 The Battle of Chile

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★★★★
"Patricio Guzman's documentary juxtaposes historical chaos with the eternal beauty and mystery of the mountain range..the awe-inspiring Cordillera that surrounds his home town of Santiago
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

Patricio Guzmán has described The Cordillera of Dreams, which follows his Nostalgia for the Light (2010) and The Pearl Button (2015), as the final entry in a trilogy; all three documentaries are unified by his poetic narration of a political journey through Chile’s recent history…

“In Chile,” states Guzmán, “what cannot be seen does not exist.” The Cordillera of Dreams gives visibility to the unseen. This extraordinary, poetic, political work is a heartfelt corrective to a mode of being that intentionally turns away; it encourages the viewer to look deeply at things that have been erased, overlooked, or, like the Cordillera, taken for granted. It brings into existence hidden histories as a way of better contextualising the past and better understanding the relationship between landscape and memory, which continues to shape the present.

Maria Delgado, Sight & Sound

'In this poetic documentary, filmmaker Patricio Guzmán meditates on the past and future of his home country via the mountains that close it off from the rest of the world.'A deeply personal film…Cordillera is a more directly and immediately political statement than Guzmán's last two films.'
Jonathan Romney, Film Comment

★★★★
In this conclusion to Patricio Guzman's trilogy documenting the long nightmare of Chile's coup through its landscape, the Cordillera - the country's Andes spine - is an impassive monumental witness to the Pinochet regime's buried acts, and victims' graveyard. Guzman the soft-spoken, enraptured narrator gives a sense of bardic reverie to these masterfully edited, lustrously beautiful films.
This confirms Guzman's lightly worn status as Chile's national cinematic poet, remembering the disappeared, and the beloved, benighted country they disappeared into.'
Nick Hasted, The Arts Desk


'Patricio Guzmán completes a superb trilogy tracking a personal, political and philosophical journey through Chile's history and landscape.'
Jessica Kiang, Variety

'Chilean documentarian Patricio Guzmán's The Cordillera of Dreams caps off an astonishing set of history-focused essay films, beginning with Nostalgia for the Light and continuing with The Pearl Button. The trilogy represents one of the great artistic statements of the decade.'
Martyn Conterio, CineVue

'Chile's Patricio Guzmán makes a scathing condemnation of his country's social amnesia regarding the Pinochet dictatorship, through an ode to the geographical miracle of the Andes.'
Carlota Mosegul, Cineuropa

'Whatever the future holds for his native land, Guzman's trilogy will have its place in their history, as does The Battle of Chile.'
Marc Glassman, POV Magazine

Read Interview with Patricio Guzman in Reverse Shot by Daniel Witkin

Download press book

Download 4 photos here

Photo of Patricio Guzman and Samuel Lahu filming

Quad poster high res jpg

Trailer on YouTube

Trailer Pro Res size

Clip 1 on YouTube

Clip 3 on YouTube

Download Cannes press book

For film bookings please contact Colin Burch at Verve Pictures — [email protected]. Press resources are on the Press page.