Patricio Guzmán (1941-2026)

Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán passed away in Paris on 15 September at the age of 85. Born in Santiago in 1941, he devoted much of his life and work to preserving the memory of Chile’s recent history. His landmark trilogy La batalla de Chile [The Battle of Chile] (1975-1979), filmed during the final years of Salvador Allende’s government and the 1973 coup, established him as one of the great figures of political documentary cinema. After being arrested following the coup and forced into exile, Guzmán continued to explore the legacy of the Pinochet dictatorship and the wounds it left on Chilean society through films such as Nostalgia de la luz [Nostalgia for the Light] (2010), La cordillère des songes (2019) and Mi país imaginario [My Imaginary Country] (2022).