Nostalgia de la luz

Nostalgia for the Light

Less a documentary, more a beautifully shot meditation, both thought provoking and engaging

A beautifully filmed documentary on the people who live and work on the giant telescopes in the Chilean Atacama Desert and the women still searching for their loved ones, tortured and murdered by the Pinochet regime. Guzmán focuses on the similarities between astronomers researching humanity’s past, in an astronomical sense, and the struggle of many Chilean women who still search, after decades, for the remnants of their relatives executed during the dictatorship.

The documentary includes interviews and commentary from those affected and from astronomers and archaeologists. It opened to wide acclaim from critics and won several 'Best Documentary' awards.

Patricio Guzmán, born in Santiago, Chile in 1941, is a documentary film maker. He is internationally renowned for films such as The Battle for Chile and Salvador Allende.

An astronomy buff since childhood, Guzman ponders some staggering views of the solar system. He travels to the Atacama Desert, whose incredibly clear skies have made it home to two major observatories. The region's extreme lack of moisture not only prevents cloud cover but preserves the dead, which has made the Atacama a destination for both archaeologists and astronomers.

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