Maite Alberdi feels comfortable behind a camera. With this, he gets to know lives, enters intimacies and tells stories that he couldn’t in any other way. And this is what he has done in La memoria infinita, the documentary that shows a couple who have shared 25 years together and who have had to fight Alzheimer’s for the last eight years. “The camera was the best excuse to be able to enter places I couldn’t enter and into intimacies I couldn’t see”, the filmmaker, who is facing her third nomination for the Goya awards after La once (2014) and El topo agent (2020).
La memoria infinita follows the marriage formed by Augusto Góngora and Paulina Urrutia. Góngora, who died in 2023, was a prominent journalist who gained popularity at the helm of Teleanálisis, a news channel opposed to the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. In 2014, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, a fact that meant a before and after in his relationship with Urrutia, a long-standing actress and ex-Minister of Culture in Michelle Bachelet’s government. The film shows Alzheimer’s from the intimacy of marriage. The daily cares, reminding someone who he was and what he did in his life, in addition to the crises typical of a disease that affects millions of people.
The story behind the documentary, which premiered and won at Sundance, comes into Alberti’s hands by chance. “I met them, I looked at them and I saw how much they loved each other”, explains the director, who initially received a refusal from the family. “At first, the family and Paulina didn’t want to. He convinced her and now she loves the film and is a big promoter of it. He has traveled the world showing it”. “It’s cute because she says it was Augusto’s decision and that she’s grateful because after so many years of caring, she came back to the world with him. And the children – Cristóbal and Javiera – also love it. They say it’s a great film to show their children,” adds the filmmaker.
For Góngora, memory has an important place. In 1989 he led the publication of La memoria prohibida, a book that compiles chronicles of the dictatorship and its tragedies. “We see a man who fought for historical memory and forgets it, which is the great paradox. But at the same time he doesn’t forget everything. This is the infinite memory, the one that remains, the emotional memory”, says the director, who took a Forqué with her in December. “He didn’t forget the friends he lost until the last day. And even if he wasn’t able to say what year the dictatorship was, he knew what it generated. He remembers Paulina until the last day, even if he forgets about her at times”, he adds.
The film coincides with the 50th anniversary of the coup d’état in Chile and also reflects on this, as far-right groups have appeared that have sought to relativize crimes against humanity. “It is a way of maintaining his legacy and telling Chile that radical right-wing views may come, that is to say that it is necessary to contextualize and understand the violations of human rights at that time, but what Góngora is saying is that they can try to manipulate or erase history, but the pain is here and the pain of a people continues, even if you lose your memory”.
The film was a total success in his country and arrives in Spain on January 12. “It is the most watched documentary in the history of Chile. I never thought it could be a blockbuster. There are already 40 countries that have theatrical premieres of La memoria infinita, and this is exceptional in these times when one assumes that films are watched via streaming”.
