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The Cordillera of Dreams
(La Cordillère des songes)

Directed by Patricio Guzmán.
Chile/France , 2019, DCP, color, 85 min.
Spanish with English subtitles.
DCP source: Icarus Films

The closing film of Guzmán’s latest trilogy looks again to his homeland’s unique geography, turning now to the Andes Mountains that define Chile’s Eastern border, protecting and seemingly isolating the nation against the rest of the world. Tinged with rueful nostalgia, The Cordillera of Dreams returns to Guzmán’s childhood home—the modest and remarkably still-standing house—to examine with strong ambivalence Chile’s present moment of neoliberal prosperity. A stranger in his native land, Guzmán seeks the guidance of a group of artists, writers and painters whose work concerns the Chilean condition. A special place is given to the inveterate documentarian Pablo Salas, a humble and indefatigable filmmaker whose entire career has been spent filming protests and police repression—from the Pinochet days to the present. Salas’ work and vast archive, as well as his unbroken commitment to the daily struggle, are offered by the film as exemplary and as a counter-example used by Guzmán to gently question the cost of his own exile and distance. Winner of Best Documentary at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, The Cordillera of Dreams resonates deeply at a time when urgent political change seems within reach but still so very far away.

Part of film series

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Cinema of Resistance

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Patricio Guzmán's
Chile Trilogy

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