Cinema
The Battle of Chile
La batalla de Chile
Patricio Guzmán · 1979
Synopsis
A documentary trilogy shot from October 1972 by a small crew, with a camera, a tape recorder and film stock sent by Chris Marker. The first part opens in March 1973 with the parliamentary elections and follows the opposition as it goes around the institutions; the second shows the violence of the winter of 1973, a first attempted putsch, the truckers' strike and a rally of Allende's supporters; the third returns to the workers' responses, factory occupations, self-management and industrial cordons.
Context
The reels, some twenty hours, were hidden at an uncle of the director's, then, with the help of the Swedish ambassador Harald Edelstam, reached Stockholm and Havana, where the team edited them at the Cuban film institute. The three parts were released between 1975 and 1979. The cinematographer, Jorge Müller, was abducted by the political police about a year after the fall of Allende and is counted among the disappeared. Awarded at Grenoble and at several festivals, the trilogy had an international distribution; Pauline Kael praised it in the New Yorker.
Who it is for
More than four hours of black-and-white documentary, in three parts; French and English titles attested.
Prizes and reception
Shown in thirty-five countries, and regarded by Memoria Chilena as the most widely distributed Latin American documentary in the world.
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