109 minutes / Color
English; Spanish / English subtitles
Release: 2002
Copyright: 2001
Augusto Pinochet, the general who overthrew President Salvador Allende of Chile in 1973, was the first dictator in Latin America - or the world - to be humbled by the international justice system since the Nuremberg trials.
In September 1998, Pinochet flew to London on a pleasure trip. He rested for a few days. He had tea with Margaret Thatcher. But, suddenly, he began experiencing back pain and underwent an operation in the London Clinic. Upon waking from surgery, he was arrested by the London police. Who was responsible for this?
This new film by Patricio Guzmán investigates the legal origins of the case in Spain - where it began two years before Pinochet's arrest. With the film's protagonists, among them the prosecutor Carlos Castressana who filed the charges, and Judge Baltasar Garzon, who upheld them and issued the arrest warrant, THE PINOCHET CASE explores how a small group of people in Madrid laid the groundwork for this incredible feat.
Scotland Yard served the arrest warrant, and THE PINOCHET CASE also follows the workings of the British legal system that ensued. Crucial to the legal case against Pinochet were the testimonies of victims of those crimes. Hundreds of Chileans, most of them women, relatives of the "disappeared," ex-prisoners that had suffered all kinds of torture and interrogation in secret prisons, traveled to Madrid to testify. THE PINOCHET CASE movingly incorporates their stories.
When Pinochet finally returned to Chile, he faced 200 accusations of crimes, this time in Chilean courts. Eventually the Chilean Supreme Court also stripped him of his immunity, and on January 29, 2001, Judge Juan Guzmán placed Augusto Pinochet under house arrest. The people were no longer afraid, and the Chilean justice system started to make up for lost time.
"Eloquent, meticulously structured. A gripping step-by-step account of the case. Sober political and legal analysis alternates with grim first-hand accounts of torture and murder in a film that has the structure of a choral symphony that swells to a bittersweet finale. A beautifully layered mosaic that is all the more powerful for never raising its voice to a shout..."—New York Times
"Haunting! A magisterial documentary about the force of memory."—New York Magazine
"Extraordinarily powerful!"—Pat Aufderheide, International Documentary
"Both a legalistic thriller and a searing documentary, THE PINOCHET CASE is a fitting coda to a magnificent trilogy... (and) Guzmán's trilogy is one of the finest documentaries ever made."—Simon Hattenstone, The Guardian
"Rarely has law been as riveting as in this film."—Documentary Magazine
Select Accolades
The epic chronicle of Chile's open and peaceful socialist revolution, and of the violent counter-revolution against it in 1973.
Patricio Guzmán | 1998 | 263 minutes | Spanish | English subtitles
After the coup in 1973, Chile was turned into a laboratory for the world's most radical neo-liberal experiment.
Carola Fuentes and Rafael Valdeavellano | 2016 | 85 minutes | Color | English; Spanish | English subtitles
Four years of the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, charged with 66 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide for his role in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.
Michael Christoffersen | 2008 | 69 minutes | Color
In Chile's Atacama Desert, Patricio Guzman studies distant galaxies, ancient civilizations, and the remains of the disappeared.
Patricio Guzmán | 2011 | 90 minutes | Color | Spanish | English subtitles
At the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo investigates and prosecutes accused war criminals, worldwide.
Barry Stevens | 2011 | 52 minutes | Color | English
Patricio Guzmán (The Battle of Chile) tells Allende's story, from his youth in Valparaiso and his early career, to his presidency of Chile and death during the coup of September 11, 1973.
Patricio Guzmán | 2006 | 100 minutes | Color | Spanish | English subtitles
