‘PREMIERE: El botón de nacar (The Pearl Button) – Patricio Guzmán’

The Chilean director Patricio Guzmán takes you with him to the quiet waters of Western Patagonia, where the last indigenous people live between the island groups. There are two mysterious pearl buttons on the ocean floor. They are a reminder of the numerous political prisoners who were thrown into the sea and drowned during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. Just like in his 2010 film Nostalgia for the Light, in this documentary Guzmán combines a series of breath-taking images of nature with Chile’s gruesome past. This year the French-Chilean-Spanish documentary won the Silver Bear for Best Script at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Q&A : Ronnie Ramirez