NOSTALGIA DE LA LUZ/NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT

A film by Patricio Guzmán about the distance between the sky and the ground, the distance between light and human beings, and the mysterious comings and goings of all of the above.  At three thousand meters of altitude, astronomers from all over the world have gathered in the Atacama desert to wacth the stars, in northern Chile.  Here the sky's clarity allows us to see the end of the universe.  Below, the dryness of the ground keeps human remains intact forever: mummies, explorers, miners, indigenous people, and the skeletal remains of the political prisoners of the dictatorship.  While astronomers look for alien life, a group of women dig up stones looking for their family members.  Presented in the Special Screening section of Cannes 2010, where it was an Official Selection.   The director, a premier Chilean filmmaker, Patricio Guzmán made his documentary debut with El primer año (1971).  His trilogy The Battle of Chile [La batalla de Chile] (1975-1979) had a major international impact.  His filmography also includes In The Name of God [En nombre de Dios] (1987), The Southern Cross [La Cruz del Sur ](1992), Pueblo en vilo (1995), Chile, Obstinate Memory [Chile, la memoria obstinada](1997), La isla de Robinson Crusoe (1999), The Pinochet Case [El caso Pinochet] (2001), Madrid (2002), Salvador Allende (2004) and My Jules Verne [Mi Julio Verne] (2005).