English summary

The ocean contains the history of all humanity. The sea holds all the voices of the earth and those that come from outer space. Water receives impetus from the stars and transmits it to living creatures.

Chile, a land with a vast coastline, offers a supernatural landscape full of volcanoes, mountains and glaciers. The poetic film El Botón de Nácar (The Pearl Button) tells the story of Chilean history through the metaphor of water. Why has Chile never become a true maritime nation? Precolonial Chile had strong ties with the water, but then came the colonists. A large percentage of the native population disappeared. In his film, Guzmán uses breathtakingly beautiful shots to show how water flows through the history of the native Patagonian population, and how water was connected to the fate of the political prisoners of the Pinochet regime.
Previously, Guzmán made the highly praised documentary ‘Nostalgia de la Luz’ in which the Atacama Desert in Chile is linked to Pinochet’s dictatorship. His newest film, El Botón de Nácar, has already won 9 international awards, including the Silver Bear for Best Script at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival.