Chile, la memoria obstinada (1997)

In 1997, Patricio Guzmán returns to Chile with a copy of his famous documentary, The Battle of Chile. He returns with the aim of meeting again with some of the people who had been forced to play leading roles during the events of September 11, 1973, and of showing his film to a new generation of Chilean citizens who had been unable to see it until now because the film had been banned for years. The film shows a series of meetings and conversations with people featured in the original film and with a group of young people, for whom the 1973 coup and the dictatorship seem either like a vague and distant memory or, in the opinion of some of them, an episode of little historical significance. After taking the older participants to some of the places they had visited in 1973 while the original film was being shot, Guzmán screens it for the young people he had interviewed earlier, filming their reactions and listening to their opinions afterward. The film culminates with images of a march through the streets of Santiago, during which the music of one of the anthems of Popular Unity can be heard clearly—a fact that surprises many passersby.