Battle of Chile director Patricio Guzmán dies aged 85

Passionate documentary maker won international acclaim for unsparing but poetic films exploring the impact of the Pinochet regime in Chile Patricio Guzmán, the film-maker who chronicled Chile’s bloody 1970s political strife and its subsequent social and political turmoil in films such as The Battle of Chile and Nostalgia for the Light, has died aged 85.

According to Chilean news outlet Emol , Guzmán died on Tuesday in Paris after a cardiorespiratory arrest. Guzmán’s chief preoccupation throughout his career was the carnage unleashed by Augusto Pinochet’s coup in 1973 against Salvador Allende, Chile’s elected president. He later told the Guardian : “I’m a film-maker who was very marked by the ways of the dictator. It has…