Atacama: the desert of the past

Somewhere that you might call the end of the world, right at the edge of Chile there is a desert called Atacama. The land so dry and barren and the air so thin that hardly any living creatures can survive there. Yet this place attracts certain groups of people.  People who are in search of the past. In the high Chilean desert, astronomers look at the furthest stars, archaeologists dig into the human past, and relatives search for the remains of Pinochet’s victims… This land holds an enormous amounts of asteroids that hit the earth, fossils and carvings on rocks by pre-Colombian shepherds and something else, too : Human remains of thousands of victims that have been tortured and massacred by Pinochet’s dictatorship who have been buried there.

The documentary “Nostalgia for the light” made by Patricio Guzmán  tells a story of astronomers who look at the stars 8million light years away from us, archaeologists who dig for pre-historical art and a handful of women who are in search for the remains of their loved ones, whether it was their husbands , brothers or any other relatives…

I watched this documentary about five times. Apart from the great story it tells, it has some of the most amazing sceneries captured in this film. 

Here is the full length documentary, although this one doesn’t have English subtitles but if you have an hour or so to spare and you would like to see some great scenes, I would recommend this…