Patricio Guzmán, Chilean filmmaker, dies at 85

Patricio Guzmán, the Chilean filmmaker best known for his documentary series The Battle of Chile, died on Tuesday in Paris at the age of 85. The Guardian reports that he suffered a cardiorespiratory arrest, according to Chilean news outlet Emol.

Guzmán’s work has consistently examined the violence unleashed by Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 coup against President Salvador Allende. He has said he is a filmmaker shaped by the dictator’s legacy, but not a political activist. He described his films as metaphorical and poetic interpretations of reality.

Born in 1941, Guzmán began in advertising before studying film in Chile and Madrid. He returned to a politically charged Chile to document the events of the early 1970s, producing the three‑part documentary that chronicled Pinochet’s overthrow and Allende’s suicide. The series included raw footage such as a camera operator’s death on camera, and the production was supported by French filmmaker Chris Marker, who supplied film stock and contacts. Guzmán himself was arrested and later released; his cinematographer Jorge Müller and his girlfriend were arrested, tortured and disappeared in 1974.

After completing The Battle of Chile abroad, Guzmán released the three parts in 1975, 1976 and 1979. The Guardian praised it as an outstandingly photographed newsreel that captured the era’s drama. He revisited the subject in the 1990s with Chile, Obstinate Memory and in 2001 with The Pinochet Case. Later, he shifted to metaphysical themes in a trilogy that used Chile’s landscapes to explore trauma, culminating in My Imaginary Country, which premiered in 2022 and examined the 2019 protests.