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"A vivid, essential portal to understanding not only the heritage of a nation, but also the art of nonfiction cinema." – Indiewire
Chile's coastline extends for 4000 kilometres, with the expanse of the Pacific Ocean providing the country's western border. For the land's original inhabitants, cruelly massacred by European settlers, this water was part of everyday life. For over a thousand political dissidents in the Pinochet era, it was a grave.
Patricio Guzmán follows his acclaimed documentary Nostalgia for the Light (MIFF 2010) with an equally mesmerising exploration of nature and national history. In The Pearl Button, Guzmán guides us through stories of Chile's past; through objects, landscapes, water droplets and the cosmos above.
Winner of the Silver Bear for Best Script at the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival.
"A clear-eyed work of exposé, analysis and poetry, with little pretense and instead a touching evocation of scale, the scale of time and history, culture and crimes, and nature's relation to it all." – MUBI Notebook