Calendar – Past Event

The UCLA Film & Television Archive, in association with Los Angeles Filmforum, presents
PATRICIO GUZMÁN: THE WATCHFUL EYE
Friday, April 15-Wednesday, May 11
Co-presented with the Latin American Institute and the UCLA Department of Spanish & Portuguese

"The only eternal lesson to be had is to study the past, so that we won't repeat it."- Patricio Guzmán.

In a remarkable 40-year career, Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán has crafted a unique legacy among documentarians: cataloguing the cataclysmic modern events of his country in a body of work not only timely, but timeless. Influenced early on by the nonfiction work of Chris Marker, Frédéric Rossif and Louis Malle, Guzmán began his career in 1971, documenting the sweeping social and economic reforms enacted by Chile's then-president, Salvador Allende, Latin America's first democratically elected socialist head of state. In 1973, Allende's government was brought down in a bloody coup that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power and Guzmán was forced to leave Chile for Europe where he completed The Battle of Chile, Parts 1-3 (1975-1979), a searing account of the Allende government's final year. Guzmán has returned to the events of 1973 and their aftermath several times throughout his career while also expanding his field of inquiry to explore the very natures of cinema, history and memory. In his latest film, Nostalgia for the Light (2010), Guzmán orchestrates a dazzling meditation on the insistent presence of the past in all our lives. UCLA Film & Television Archive is pleased to welcome Mr. Guzmán in person to the Billy Wilder Theater on Friday, April 29.

Screenings at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, at the Billy Wilder Theater in the Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles
Parking: $3 in the lot under the theater. Enter from Westwood Blvd., just north of Wilshire.

**Filmforum members receive two for one admission to all shows in this series at the Billy Wilder Theater box office.**

For full details and advance tickets, please also see the UCLA Film & Television Archive website at http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/public/calendar/calendar_f.html

Saturday, May 7
7:30 p.m.
The Southern Cross (La Cruz Del Sur)
Spain 1992
PROD: Rafeal García. DIR: Patricio Guzmán. SCR: Patricio Guzmán. CINE: Antonio Rios. EDIT: Marcello Navarro.

In The Southern Cross, Guzmán assays the history of religion in Latin America, from pre-Columbian mythology, through the spread of Christianity and the syncretistic local strategies that arose from their encounter. But this visually rich and contemplative work is no mere illustrated lecture. While grounded in materialism, Guzmán pushes out to explore the spiritual imagination of the region's diverse peoples and conjures a deeply spiritual film along the way.
DigiBeta, Spanicolor, 80 min.

A Village Fading Away (Pueblo en vilo)
Chile 1995
Patricio Guzmán
DIR: Patricio Guzmán. SCR: Patricio Guzmán.

This rarely seen film finds Guzmán working in collaboration with Mexican historian Luis González y González, a pioneer of "microhistory," which approaches small-scale, ordinary events as constitutive and reflective of larger historical movements. Inspired by González y González's classic microhistory of a small Michoacán town and guided by González y González himself, Guzmán tours San José de Gracia with an eye to its resonant past and multi-layered present while exploring the nature of historical inquiry itself.
DigiBeta, color, 52 min.